We went through a process of throwing in some sand, wetting it down with water, and then tamping it down. Repeated this for a while (though I have to say, having a spigot and working water again in the basement feels like a treat and a luxury).
Down in the basement, I got to see what our plumber had been up to. He’s successfully replaced our lead pipe, and things are markedly less dangerous/unstable. We were originally going to have to freeze the pipe to work on it, but he was able to do it without the freezing (and ended up saving us a few hundred dollars, as a result).
Long day of basement work with Bob today. Though Liz and I did some work yesterday, we still had tons to do today.
Our plan is to fill the area back in once we’re done working with the pipes, so we’re keeping all the dirt/sand nearby in a pile. Seems a little odd, but no sense in hauling this all outside when we’d have to haul it all back in again.
We pulled out the aluminum brake, and worked on getting some large sheets measured out and folded up. In the course of the process, I ended up misaligning one of the (large) pieces, and we made a bend that nearly wrecked one of the pieces. Instead of a straight line, my mistake ended up causing a slightly diagonal bend.
Today, Liz and I decided to brave some basement demo on our own. We talked a bit over the last week, in terms of us trying to take on more tasks ourselves. Even though we love Bob’s help, we found ourselves wanting to try to do more by ourselves.
For now, we’re in good shape with a lot of the area cleared away from the main waste pipe for the plumber to investigate. We’ll be looking to see if we can relocate this pipe closer to the wall, giving us a lot more walking room between the main basement and the back area.
On Sunday, Julie and Bob were at our place to help work on the house. It was an all-plants weekend for Julie, as she shifted from running her annual plant sale just yesterday, to helping us tame the out-of-control front yard.
On Saturday, Liz and I were in Frankfort to help out with Julie’s annual plant sale. We arrived the night before, and were all up early to help out (Julie had gotten up around 5:30AM, looking to water her plants before the visitors arrived).
Today, Bob stopped by after work to discuss the next plans/phase of the kitchen work. Liz is primarily running the show here, but a lot of conversation was had trying to figure out where things will end up going, outlets, that sort of thing.
While we were planning, Liz had suited up in her work clothes and was tackling cleaning the basement area (below where we and been working all week, on the kitchen). It was a mess down there, but she really cleared the space up well!
For Memorial Day, we ended out to visit Michelle and Mike at their new house. We arrived to find a lot of guests, a lot of dogs, and tons of great food set up out back.
You can’t see it in this picture, but Bob, Liz, and I are all smiling like crazy watching the dogs on Jake’s bike. We heard some great stories about how other people (pedestrians, other bicyclists, and even cars) reacted when seeing these guys go down the street.
On Sunday, I trekked over to the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool with Liz and met up with Michelle, Mike, and Meg for some photos. The girls had all been working on knitting the same cardigan, and as is traditional… got together to take photos of their completed work.
In her wandering around the yard, Liz happened across a flower that made her really happy. But me, on seeing the Lily of the Valley… I couldn’t help but think of Breaking Bad.