Thanksgiving Week Workload

Just working on finishing up the kitchen and taking out the soffits.

Oops! Maybe I should have laid off the second helpings of pie.

It is amazing we actually accomplished something with this caliber of workers.

Ten years bad luck for Nathan.

Most of the cabinents are out and the tile is coming up.

Just taking a short break. Wow the new workout has really changed Mom.

Tami, I wished there was a reason to explain your change.

Close your eyes mom, and suck up those mouse terds.

Just a couple "trashy" kids


Let that viking blood do its thing.
Yes, they are going and boy are we glad.

The arrival of the sheetrock.

This one is for you Mark. Some of your Dad's handywork.

The latest on the remodeling

Monday the 22nd, the walls came down and now we have a fancy plastic wall. Doesn't keep out the dust, cold or wandering critters.
Life has become quite interesting.

Just putting the kids and grandkids to work. What a crazy bunch of workers,

luckily they work for just an otterpop per hour.



Here's a close up of the windows.

As you can see, all the windows are in place and shining.

Here's Troy putting in our first window. How Beautiful!

This is the outside looking in. The roof is being put on now.

Tar paper will keep the rain out after this is done. Only two weeks late. We have had several storms wetting the carpet upstaris and down staris. The smell is like a cave full of rotting cheese.

This will be the view out the back door. The opening above the door will not be this wide open.

We will have three smaller windows above the doors.

Boy that ceiling looks high. Not an easy place to change a light bulb.

This is inside looking up at the trusses.

Nothing like a tall crane to give us a lift. This sure makes it a lot easier.

The work starts from the ground up. The trusses are so long it takes a rig to lift them.

Note the pumpkins in the back field, HALLOWEEN is coming.

So is the rain

More pics

The basement (if you couldn't tell). Yep, that's about it.

Just some pics

Here are some updated pics. Things seem to be going forward. Next saturday the trusses should arrive.

Pour woodshop

The final pour is in Dad's woodshop. I had to get ready to fly out to Phoenix so I couldn't stick around and see the final results. Now with this woodshop Dad should have an immaculate garage and shop. Ha, Ha, Ha!! Dad is sitting here laughing as I'm typing this. Like I said, I have a great imagination.

Basement floor

They started pouring the back stairs first and then poured the basement floor. After several hours of troweling you can see that it's pretty smooth and almost finished. It's really starting to look like something now. Can you see my storage room at the top of the picture? I can just imagine us sitting in Dad's theater(at the bottom of the picture) and watching a movie. I have a very good imagination, don't I?

Grading

After filling the woodshop area they spread the rest of the dirt around the yard making it level. Check out that neat looking covered ditch. So smooth, flat and no weeds.

Bobcat

The floor needed dirt to be added to make it level for the concrete pour. Look at this clever way to lower this little bobcat down so it could do it's work.

Dirt pile

Here's the next part of our renovation saga. What came out now must be put back in to fill around the foundations.

Foundation poured

I have added these 3 pictures to my blog but haven't figured out how to move them to the bottom of this posting so they are out of order. Here's that big pumper truck going over the house.

Yesterday, Tuesday, September 4th the foundation was poured. They had a huge crane-like thing that the cement was pumped into from the cement trucks and then they moved it around as it filled up the forms. It took three cement truck before they got through. Some of the other guys would use rods to make sure there were no air pockets and that it filled in all the way.

The next day they removed the forms and as you can see Ellis has already started to seal the bottom part of the foundation with that black stuff. I hope this description isn't too technical for all of you lay people. Things are starting to get going and you can almost imagine how it will look when it gets done.

Foundations

The footings are done and they are getting ready to pour the foundation. Because of the holiday they will probably do it sometime after Labor Day.