Forward progress...

Hello All,

So when we last left off, we were installing the stone facade. Here you can see an in progress shot of the front of the house:

And this weekend, we managed to finished the stonework. Well, there are three stones left to put up and we need to flash the top of the stone. But it still feels like an accomplishment.

Now, while we were finishing the stonework, we heard my old chihuahua Peanut, barking madly. We figured she was making a bed. She likes to bark while making her bed. Well, when we came inside, this is what we found. Yes, she's diagnosed with lung disease and takes Viagra twice a day, and the doctors said she only had six months, at most, back in March. And every day is a gift, but this trashed pillow is a special gift to me. :)

Since she was so full of energy, we took her on a trip to Home Depot to pick up a new ladder. The next step is installing Tyvek and siding on the house. I have a scaffolding system for helping me put on the siding, but I need a taller ladder in order to install the supports. You'll see it in the next picture. Anyways, Peanut enjoyed her outing.

Here you can see the scaffolding in place and the bottom layer of tyvek being installed. If you've never worked on scaffold jacks, the first time is a very terrifying experience. More about that in future posts...

More stone facade

Here's when we first started putting on the stone facade a couple weekends ago.

We had to put the top row up first in order to make sure everything was level.  This involved some weird (this is the lady of the house here by the way) 2x4 contraptions at the corners to hold the pink (I picked it) line around it that we used as our level line.

 The first few stones fell right off.  We needed more mortar, and wetter mortar!  I put my frosting cake experience to parallel purposes.

Then we got ourselves a system.  I picked out pieces and slapped on mortar and the Mr. smooshed them into the wall very level-like.  This took a lot of force he tells me.  You would have a hard time doing it he tells me.  

Seeing as how he actually overestimates my strength I didn't argue.

This first weekend we got all the way around the house with the top row except for a few spots where the stones need to be custom cut.  This is great because... 1. Progress! and 2. Now we can put the flashing above the stone and set ourselves up for siding.  

Naturally we took the dogs with us to hang out.  

Since we had to clear out all stuff around the house we removed the ramp at the back and the cinder block stairs (classy) at the front that we use to get into the house.  Peanut was stuck in the house when we put her up there and Bubba could jump out, but couldn't jump back into the house (or so we all thought).  At one point he barked at me to help him into the house (there was a bed and water in there), but I couldn't help him fast enough (mortar on my gloves).  A few minutes later I walked around the corner and he was just chillin' in the house on his bed.  So I had him show me how he got in there.  I wanted to see it.

Trial 1.  

Whoops!  I just don't think he was that motivated to jump himself when we were right there and obviously could help him.  I get it.

Trial 2.  

Now that is a damn good jump!  P.S. I gave him a proper dog treat right after this.  And then I had some skittles that I keep in my tool belt for me.

Life gets in the way....

So in mid-July, we finally ran out of money and my work picked up significantly.

The good news is that the money lasted until the roof was on and the windows were in.

The bad news is that now, the pace of work will slow down significantly, as we will have to pay for things as we go, and we will have to do all of the labor.

Also, with my work picking up significantly, I've ended up working quite a bit on the weekends, which has further slowed progress.

Right now we are applying the stone facade I purchased earlier in the year, and it's pretty easy to apply. Plus it looks pretty good!

We've been taking pictures this whole time, so hopefully I'll have time to go back and start filling in pictures and stories. But in the meantime, I figured an update was appropriate.

Something funny happened on the way to the store...

So, we needed to pick out a few temporary doors for the house. We are buying very cheap, temporary doors to close up the structure, until we pick out our final doors. Also, until we can afford final doors, money is running tight.

So we bought two used doors from a local salvage shop called Second Use. They had a wonderful selection, the staff were very friendly and it was a totally positive experience. I think we'll definitely be heading back there.

But I thought you would appreciate this little series of photos, we decided to bring the dogs along....

Now, I might want to mention, today has not been Bubba's day. The day started with nail trimming, then a bath, then tooth brushing, then frontline. Oh and we caught him eating Peanut's food twice and he was kenneled as a result. So it just wasn't Bubba's day to start with.

And then we made him share a lap for the ride down to ReStore....

And then we told him how we were going to go shopping in ReStore!

Hey! They allow dogs in the store! Come one Peanut! Bubba, you get to wait in the truck....

Apologies for the delay.

It's been a while since I've posted a blog entry.

My apologies, it's been a little crazy around here. To sum it up, the decision was made to go ahead and build the second floor now, rather than wait.

I'll go back and fill in the gaps, but this is where we stand today:

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.