Thursday, Week 2

After everyone left for the day on Thursday, and everyone came, I looked out my front window and had to laugh. This was the view:In my driveway was the cement truck. They had been working on removing more dirt, so the bobcat was still in my front yard and the truck with the trailer to haul the dirt away had left with a load only to come back to the cement truck in my driveway, so it was stuck out in the middle of the street. Then the cement guys trailer with all of their tools was in front of the house with the truck they'd come in this morning in front of it. I think there was even another truck that you couldn't see because the cement truck was blocking it from my view. It was a crazy time. Things are definitely happening.

So, onto the progress of the day. The biggest thing that happened was that they got the cement all poured that morning. They also spent quite a bit of time prepping before pouring the cement, and smoothing and finishing after the cement was poured. Because of the cold, two things happened. I learned that our front sidewalk and steps won't be poured for a while. It could be a month or more, but hopefully just a few weeks. Also, they had to tent the cement while it started curing. THAT was an experience. I didn't realize how much I looked out my front windows until all I could see was blue tarp. But it was worth it. It's coming together great. I told Nathan that I feel like they peeked into my head and saw exactly what I wanted and did it. I really feel like everything is coming together GREAT!

Putting the drain into the french drain bucket.Prepping the top of the steps (I was worried about this, but they did beautifully). If anyone ever needs concrete work done, let me know. I know some GREAT people.Finishing up prepping.The site before things started really happening.And it begins.And more.Making sure it gets everywhere.Pouring some more.It's all poured.Working the stairs.Looking down the staircase.I think the top guy's trying to get out all of the bubbles. The bottom guy is still working on the stairs.The top is looking great.Another top shot.And working under the tent.He's moving right along.The top through the kitchen windowAnd through the living room window.The tent!Everything's done. Just waiting for it to dry a little.

Here is my exciting story for the day: Zoey and I went to the store. When we got back, Zoey wasn't done eating her treat, so we stayed in the car. After a while, I glanced in my rear view mirror and noticed a skid steer partially in my driveway. I didn't remember it being there when we pulled up. I looked around and didn't see any guys or their trucks. I just assumed that it had probably been there and I just missed it. A few minutes later, I glanced in my mirror again and saw that the skid steer was almost all the way across my driveway and headed towards our lilac bushes. I jumped out of the car looking for the driver. There was no driver, nobody in my yard, and no trucks anywhere. I ran inside and called the person in charge. It went straight to voicemail. Then I called Nathan. He told me I shouldn't be talking on the phone while trying to stop it. I climbed up in the skid steer (after realizing that I had to go in the front where the door was, not in the side) and looked around for a key. There wasn't one. I did find a forward/backward lever and pulled it back until the skid steer was no longer heading towards my lilac bushes. I backed it up and then stopped it the best I could. I went back inside and tried the head guy again. Still voicemail. I left a message, trying not to laugh at the whole situation. As soon as I hung up, he pulled in in the truck with the trailer attached. He had gone to dump a load of dirt. I told him what had happened (again trying not to laugh too hard). He jumped in and got it under control. For the rest of the afternoon, whenever he left it, he left it parked up against the pine tree so it couldn't go anywhere. It was exciting.

The rogue skid steer.Here's our porch all poured, smoothed, finished, and getting pretty dry, so they took the tent down and wrapped it to keep it warm for a few days. I love that they put our little pedal car down to help keep the blanket/wrap in place.

Wrapping from the front.One more view.

Wednesday, Week 2

Nobody showed up on Tuesday. It was nice to get some things done. Zoey and I went and played some fun games with Grandpa Jack (Nathan's Grandpa) and we took Josie to her first orthodontist appointment.

On Wednesday, they sunk the drain for the stairs and put the forms and rebar up for the porch cap and the stairs to be poured on Thursday. They also put in some supports for the storage room and the salon doorway to support the porch cap until it cures.

Here's a shot of the addition uncovered Wednesday morning. You can see the V deck on top of everything. You can also see where they back filled on Tuesday.Here they're getting ready to put forms in for the steps.A front shot and a better picture of the V deck.Ready for the porch cap with forms and rebar.Ready for the steps with the forms and the french drain almost all put in.A finished shot.Closer of the rebar on top.And another close up.Here is the supports for the salon doorway.And a picture of the storage room.A bit farther away of the storage room. You can see the tops of the supports and the underneath of the V deck.

After they got everything ready for Thursday, they started moving the extra dirt out. They would use the skid steer to fill a trailer behind their pickup, then they would go dump it somewhere and come back and start all over again. They actually moved quite a bit that day.

Zoey was watching them and thought that I should be taking a picture of her, not whatever was going on outside.The skid steer loading up. It started snowing right after they covered everything back up, so in these next few pictures there's some snow.Carrying it to the trailer.And dumping it.

I also got a call Wednesday afternoon that my doors were ready. The guy we bought them from said that he'd be up in Dubois until about 3:00. We had talked about him delivering them if he was ever coming up this way, but he didn't say anything about it. Nathan and I talked throughout the day about how to go get them, or if we wanted to wait until he was able to come up. With the supports up in the doorways, we couldn't really put them up right away anyway. Imagine my surprise when I got a call at 3:30 saying he was on his way to bring them up to us. So, we are now the proud owners of two new outside doors. One for the salon and one for the storage room (not really outside, but it will be MUCH colder than our house, so it will be nice to have a door with good weather stripping to keep all of the cold out.

This is the salon door. I think it turned out great!The two doors together. The storage room door is just panelled. There's no window or anything. I am excited, however, that it is steel. I was thinking about painting part of my playroom with metallic paint so the kids could play with magnets. Now they can just play on the door. Yes, I am easily excitable.

Once again, a busy and productive day. I see the light at the end of the tunnel for the concrete. It is looking great and getting done faster than I had expected. And other things are moving along nicely, too.

Monday, Week 2

On Saturday, I went to a class for small business owners. It was VERY informative and gave me lots of things to think about. I also had a lot of calls and decisions that had to be made about the remodel, so I left Nathan in charge of those while I went to my class. He did a fine job. The biggest problem was that we had decided to go with a 1 piece tub/shower insert and if we didn't get it in the storage room before they put the porch cap on (scheduled to start Monday) we wouldn't be able to get it in our house. We didn't have the tub, yet. Nathan tried to get a hold of the plumber, who we later found out was out of town all day without cell phone coverage, and couldn't. I was unreachable in my class, so he made the decision to go get the tub himself. He did a fine job. Here is our new tub . . .He also put some of the stuff that we got in Rexburg in. Here is our new side door"knob". We still need to get our deadbolt put in here, but the door actually closes now. We don't find the cat right in front of the door enjoying the warm air streaming out from around the door anymore. We're excited to be working towards having all of our outside doors unlock with the same key. Right now we have locks that open with three different keys. Not fun.He also put a new doorknob, deadbolt, and sweep downstairs. Very nice!! We also realized that we needed a drain at the bottom of the stairs. In talking to the inspector, we realized that we could have a french drain. Nathan had a 50 gallon bucket and offered to drill holes in it for the drain. So, Saturday night, Nathan also drilled about 400 1/2" holes in the bottom and sides of the bucket to get it ready to go in on Monday.

Monday, the concrete guys came back out, took the forms off, and cleaned up the concrete. They also knocked out the doors, put the tub into the storage room, and put it in my basement. They put metal V deck on top of the walls to get ready for the porch cap and backfilled all of the dirt.

I took some pictures while they were at lunch on Monday. I'm glad that I did because it was all covered up by Monday night so we didn't get any visitors through our open doorways.

Here is looking out the door to the right.And to the left. Notice the shavings/bark still on top of the walls.And straight out the door.From the front/side.And directly in front.Looking down into the stairwell. You can see Nathan's french drain sitting at the bottom.And out across the top. The backfilling is definitely not done, yet.Another front shot with all of the concrete covered up.And from the side.This is the best shot I could get of the storage room door. That big thing on the left is the backside of our tub.And a shot looking out through our salon door.An inside shot of the storage room. Looking to the left.And looking to the right. I can't get a very good shot in the storage room because there is no light. Sorry.

Friday, Week 1

Late Thursday night, we were looking over our remodel and we realized that they had put forms and rebar in the retaining wall for our stairs up to the same height as our porch. We didn't want people to feel like they were walking down into a cave, so we decided to call first thing in the morning and ask if that could be changed. We hoped that if we called them before they ordered the concrete we could change it. We called just before 8:00 and found out that that would be fine and someone would be over to change it in just a few minutes because they wanted to be here when the concrete cutter was there. He apparently was coming before 8:30. We had been told that we had through the weekend to get things ready for the cutter. We still needed to take studs off the wall that they were going to cut, take out an outlet (meaning we had to cut power to downstairs for a little while), and take down a wall that was right where the door for the salon needed to go. Nathan started taking down the studs, but had to stop for a conference call. The cutter came and got set up while I moved all of the stuff out of the east side of the basement so he could cut for the plumber. I was supposed to do hair that morning at 9:30, but had to push one friend back to 10:30 and switch another appointment to a different day so we could get everything ready for the concrete to be cut. Nathan finished his call and got the outlet taken care of and the wall and the studs down. I got the washer and dryer moved and all of my new salon stuff moved over to the "storage area." The people that came to work on our concrete came in and helped me (okay, I helped THEM) mark the lines for the cutter to cut for the plumbing. The cutter cut everything that needed to be cut, Nathan finally made it to work, and I permed J'lene's hair. The concrete guys ended up cutting down their forms (they told me they were old anyway and it was fine to cut them) to accommodate the shorter wall and got the concrete poured for all of the walls. All in all, it was a productive day all around. We saw a lot of progress and averted much disaster.

First, here was my day. I permed my friend, J'lene's hair. I had to steal the pics from her blog. She wanted to go home and get ready before we took any pictures (I would feel the same way). Here's a back shotAnd a side/front shot. Thanks for taking the pics, Brandon.And to my yard . . . This is from my driveway. To the right up against the house is where the stairs are going to be, then you can see the shorter retaining wall with the storage room walls behind.A front shot.Looking down into the storage room. You can see the window that was cut to be the new storage room door.Another shot.The new view out my door. That ladder is now how they get into and out of my storage room.Looking down to the right.And to the left. Here's a good shot of the future stairs. Notice Shadow surveying the scene. He is really good at making sure he's always there. In this shot, you can also see the pine bark that they put over the top of the concrete to keep it from freezing.When they cut the concrete, we didn't have our doors even picked out, so they just made the cuts and left the concrete there. Here's a shot of our new storage room doorway.And our salon doorway. They had to cut it in half because there isn't enough room outside the door to take it all out in one pieceAnd another shot of the salon door.I somehow didn't get a picture of the cuts for the plumbing, so I had to go back and take those a few days later. This is the beginning of the cut (where the salon sink is going to be). I can't really get a good picture because our tub is over a lot of it and we had to move our washer and dryer back over it, too.Here is the other end of it. We still have a bit to get out after we move the pressure tank and the pump. But that will be done later.We got some snow on Friday night/Saturday morning. Here are some shots from Saturday after the snow. Another front shot.And one more from the doorway.

Friday night, we went out to Stockman's Steakhouse with Nathan's parents, then we went to Idaho Falls to look at some outside doors that someone was advertising on Craigslist. We liked them but had to have one put in a frame and the other one needed a different window. We ordered them to be delivered sometime the next week.