The basement footers and walls have been poured. They poured footers for the support beams/poles and where our fireplace will be. First they had to build special forms that were soaked in vegetable oil...yeah I know I was amazed too. Who knew you could use Pam for wood? :) It took 4 concrete trucks and 3 hardworking men to fill the forms. They smoothed and vibrated the forms to make sure all the concrete got into every nook and cranny. Concrete trucks are so cool. Our concrete trucks had a killer paint job with flames on the spinny-thing. Jon and I drove out at lunch to watch one day. The trips back and forth with the heavy concrete made craters in our beautiful, level, expensive driveway. Oh well, it was to be expected.
The electric company came to install our power lines. It certainly didn't take them long. They had quite a job, but got them up in about 2 days work. It definitely took a lot longer to cut down all of the trees where the poles now stand. I'm thinking there are about 5 poles starting at my Papa Ross' house which zigzags down the road to ours. The electricity is buried underground from the road to our house. We have a transformer box now close to our house. It's kinda hidden... I'm glad it's not ugly.
We go out there almost every day. Jon can look at the concrete hole and see our house. For me, it's still just a concrete hole. I can tell where the living room is because the fireplace footer, but it's still just not coming into vision for me. I can't wait till we can get started on the top part. Then I'll be able to see how things are going to be.
I hear the next step is pouring the floor, but Jon says that Ray (the basement contractor guy) says that we need to have our well put in before that so he can use water. So I think next week (while we are on vacation) they will be digging our well. In the meantime, they are running the drains and plumbing in the basement. I have a whole new respect for these people to be able to know exactly, down to the inch, where a pipe will be just but looking at some drawing on a piece of paper. I mean if the basement is screwed up, the whole house will be. We have faith in Ray. He knows what he is doing. It seems sometimes that things are going slow, but he is taking his time because he wants it to be right. I hear that basements are so hard to do....right. We don't want a leaky, moldy basement. Our other contractor (Terry Reeder) is working another job right now anyway, so we'd have to wait for him to finish.
Hope everyone is having a nice summer! Destin here we come!!!
Inside the Wall Forms
Before the Concrete Trucks Came and Demolished It
Yeah...I'm hard at work :)
Some Vermin left their tracks in the mud
Killer paint job!!
