Landscaping before the storm.

When we last left off, I had just finished installing the drainage and backfilling the foundation. The next step was to take the remaining dirt and level the yard as much as possible. The neighbor's yard were both higher than mine, and pretty uneven, so before I even began exvacating, I asked them if I could level and smooth the yards. So with the remaining pile of dirt and another Dingo rental, I began working:

Backfilling the foundation.

Although I have let the cat out of the bag, I need to go back and cover some prior work first. Otherwise, it might be to jarring for our reader to follow the progress. Where we last left off, I had just built the shed for the kitchen. The next step was to install the drainage and backfill the foundation. This would make it easier to work around the house and start framing.

The first step was to clean up the trench around the foundation.

The light colored stuff in this picture is called "Form-A-Drain", it was supposed to act as drainage and a form board, all in one. Well it kinda sucked. It required a lot of support and still ended up wavy. And then it was really easy for the concrete to flow below and back into the drainage holes. So I decided I'd rather pull it out than rely on it and have it fail quickly.

Once I removed it all, I cleaned up the trench around the foundation and lined the trench with "trench wrap". This is supposed to keep silt from getting into the drainage line and blocking it. This was pretty straight-forward, so I rented a dump truck and a dingo and the lady started hauling away old bricks and concrete and bringing back drainage gravel.

The first step was moving the cultured stone from the driveway to the side of the driveway. I figured the dingo would do this easily, but it lost a track.

I figured there weren't enough gratuitous pictures of the Toro Dingo in the blog and this machine has saved me so much effort. So here it is, in it's hour of need.

Well, I started working and forgot to take pictures, but here is the trench after being filled with drainage rock, and after covering it with filter fabric. I found the trench wrap to be a little too easily torn, so I upgraded to filter fabric, which is much stronger and less likely to let silt into the drainage.

Here is the drainage after being backfilled. This was a pretty major moment for me. Having the foundation completed, drainage installed and being backfilled has taken over a year from the permit being issued. It's also taken much more money than I planned.

But it's finally starting to feel like real progress is being made and that it's actually more of a house than a money-pit.

Pictures of the wreckage

Once the decision to demolish the structure was made, I started looking around for the best method to get rid of the debris. I checked out dumpster rental and once I got the quote, I figured I could do better by renting a truck from Handy Andy's Rent A Tool and hauling the debris to the appropriate location.

For instance, the local municipal transfer station costs 165 per ton. If you drive a few miles south, to the Rabanco facility, you pay 90 per ton.

But let's imagine you have mostly wood, well... then you can recycle it for 25 bucks a yard.

So the weekend before the demo was supposed to begin, we rented a truck for the week. We also rented a Toro Dingo walk-behind front loader, with both a bucket and a tiller attachment.

A message from Gretchen and Henrietta.

I'll post pictures of the demo soon.

But the ladies just wanted you to know, that the sun has been out lately, and they've been lounging about in the front yard more.

I'd be a poor politician...

because I change my mind when confronted with a clear, rational argument.

Remember how I said we would be framing the first floor and then eventually framing the second floor?

Well, after a discussion with Trent and Greg, from Pallet and Palette, I decided to go ahead and demo it down to the subfloor and let them re-build the structure from scratch. The end product would be better and the whole process will be much more straight-forward.

Honestly, a large part of this decision was the trust I have in Trent and his crew at Pallet and Palette. If I were to only renovate the first floor now, was the idea that I could complete the work if the contractor flaked out (which already happened). Demo'ing the first floor and committing to both floor at once means I need to have a lot of trust in the contractor to finish the job in a timely and efficient manner. And I have that trust in Pallet and Palette.

I bring you the final wall coming down. Trent was kind enough to record this while I was at work:

PS, I'll post more pictures of the demo later in the week.

Have you met "the ladies"?

I lived in a condo for a long time. Like 12 years or something, and I liked it.

But I had come to a point that I wanted to do things like... own chickens!

Having a yard was one of the most enticing things about owning a home. Having animals, a garden and room to mess about.

So last year, I bit the bullet and bought a few peepers! Two Buff Orpingtons and two Rhode Island Reds. They were adorable.

They grew up *very* quickly. (This was mere weeks after I brought them home.)

Eventually they grew big enough that it was time to move them outside, so then it was time to build a coop. They came to live at the rental.

This is their first day outside, roughly three months after hatching. It was awesome watching them poke around and forage. Also, I learned the true secret to getting a chicken's attention. Worms.

One day, a friend gave another friend a "gift of responsibility", which meant they bought them a Silkie Bantam show chicken and dyed her pink. It was a hilarious gift and worked out well, as the recipient already had chickens. Unfortunately, chickens are pretty aggressive about enforcing a pecking order, and Bubbles wasn't very good at standing up for herself. So she came to live with my flock of chicks.

It worked out extremely well. She was very motherly and taught the little peepers how to be proper chickens.

One of the more interesting things that happened when they first moved in, was a visit from a neighbor's african guinea fowl. When the guinea fowl realised there were new ladies in the neighborhood, it was quite an event. At 5am.

Did I mention, the neighbors all hated the guinea fowl? It's pretty obvious why.

Eventually, the chicks grew up into regular chickens. One of the Rhodies turned out to be a rooster and went to live on a farm (Literally. I built a coop and he lives quite happily in the country on a friend's multi-acre estate).

Bubbles too, eventually went to live at the same friend's estate when the Buff's grew up and started picking on her too much. She's now an indoor chicken and is very happy. When she came to live with me, I was told that she had been a "show chicken" and had lived indoors. So I'm glad that her rough outdoor lifestyle is over and she's back living "in the manner to which she had been accustomed".

So all that is left are the two Buffs, whom I have named Gretchen and Henrietta. (Gretchen is the larger one.) They get let out of the coop on the weekends when I'm around, they both actively lay eggs, and they are a constant source of amusement for people walking by the frontyard of our rental.

From my experience so far, I expect them to be a wonderful addition to the new home and the neighborhood!

Our of desperation, a shed is born!

I had been operating under the idea that the delivery date for our Ikea kitchen could be easily moved.  So you know, if we weren't ready for the delivery, no problem just pay them to store it a few more weeks.

Well... after the base coat of stucco was applied to the stem-wall, I called Ikea and asked if we could push out the delivery two weeks. Their response was "nope, it is being held as long as possible, it has to be shipped on the original date, no choice".

Hmmm...

So now we either store it all in the house while we finish the foundation wall and level the yard. Or build a shed now, before the yard is leveled.  Or rent a storage unit. Or....

Hmmm...

Frankly I didn't want to move it more than necessary. The total weight of all the packages is roughly a ton, separated into 100+ cardboard boxes. So it makes sense to try and limit the times you move it around.  So I dropped by Home Depot on Friday night, picked up the materials for the subfloor of the shed and dropped it off at the house.  Saturday morning, the Future Missus and I clear a section of the backyard and starting digging out where we'll position the blocks that the shed will rest on.

It's a simple 8 x 11 platform framed shed. We used six concrete blocks to support the structure. 2x6 floor joists, OSB subfloor, 8' walls, with a simple corrugated shed style roof.

We dug out holes where the concrete blocks would rest. We then filled in the holes with between 2-4" of gravel and tamped it. We then leveled the gravel filled holes and squared everything up.

Once it was all squared, we laid down mud sills. Now, I'll be honest, this thing is meant to be fast to build and will be torn pretty quickly after we move in. So I didn't even bother to buy pressure treated sill plates.

We built up the subfloor, and decided to call it a day.

The next day we came back and built the walls. Having a square and level subfloor already there made this go really quickly. Measure, measure, measure, cut, nail, nail, nail and done. We built the sides and back on top of each other, then stood them all up and leaned them out against the fences. Then we brought the first wall up, supported it with cross-supports.  Then we lifted the second wall into place, check for level and nail it together. Then the third wall, and then I built the fourth and front wall in place.

I added double top places to lock the corners in.  Finally, I used a 2x8 to form the front of the roof, allowing it to pitch towards the back of the property.

At this point, I realized that the wooden saddles to match up with the corrugated metal roof were incompatible. Sadly the wooden saddles were made for plastic roofing.  Back to home depot to exchange the metal for the plastic.

Then I installed the roofing, drill, screw, drill, screw....

Right after I got the front OSB installed, but before I managed to get a door fabricated and installed, the delivery crew showed up and I had to help unload and organize the packages.

 Once they left, I organized the packages, made sure they delivered everything we bought.

Once that was done, I could finally build and install the door.

Admittedly after I stepped back, I realised there was a lot of unused space in the shed. So I went back and added an 8ft x 8ft "shelf" which we could fill up with all of the "stuff" we need to store until the house is completed.

We've since filled that up.  With the storage boxes that were hanging out in the corner of our rental dining room, and the storage boxes that were hanging out in the middle of the house here.  Win, win, win.