For those of you who remember the original movie “I’m getting a lot of concrete and gravel delivered”… this is the sequel: I’m getting a lot of concrete blocks delivered.
All told, it’s 90 concrete blocks and 12 corner blocks.
Close to the end of the day, we settled back with a drink and some music. And admired that good-looking arbor that someone put in, many months ago.
Bob was here today, and brought the stairs back down. And more than that, he fixed them against the supporting wall… and added an extra brace, to boot. Should give us a bit more sturdiness, before we actually put in the for real wall(s) down here.
All told, we used about 70 bags (with 13 leftover). Not too far off, on the original calculations.
Unfortunately, the forklift couldn’t really make it very far down our driveway. What this meant is that the materials got dumped near the front of the house… and we’d need to physically transport things towards the back.
One of the apple trees she planted started to flower. Which, as far as omens go, is a good one that I’ll take. This guy seems happy where he’s at, and here’s hoping he’ll continue to be happy.
More soil removal, getting the rest of the area down to the same level and tamped a bit.
Doing a bit of math with the laser level. The height of the laser line to the ground is about 4.5″. If we want 10″ below where the basement floor is, we want to hit 14.5″ on the tape.
One bummer: we were short on some lumber. So I ended up hopping in the car, and driving to the nearest Home Depot to get some more 2×3’s. I was quick, but still lost a bit of time.
Before you think that this means a lot of free time for me, think again. There’s a lot more work to be done under the back porch, and not a lot of time to get it done. So I’ve got a week of solo runs ahead of me.
Liz and I hauled out the back basement stairs. We’re clearing out this space for a cement pour, and taking these guys out was one of the last steps before we really hit the final stretch.
Big day for me and Liz. We got rained out on Friday, and we’ve got plans Sunday… so Saturday was our only day to work. And we had accounted for being able to fill not one, but two Bagsters.
Bob came over this afternoon, and helped build/install some gussets to provide more support for the back porch. He also took out the posts that were resting on the concrete columns (so that we could remove the columns).
Went downstairs tonight and on opening the basement door… my heart sank. Part of a wall that we’d been digging out had collapsed, sending soil into our cleared space.
Despite us getting a lot done yesterday, Liz and I both decided on doing some more house work today. Because of course we did. Who needs weekends?