Block Laying I

If I thought laying the rebar two weeks ago was hard, I had another thing coming! Ken warned me laying block would be hard but I didn't fully understand HOW hard (and tiring). The footer concrete was poured on a Friday, and the blocks were delivered to the lot the following Monday. We began laying them that evening:

I wasn't very good at block laying, so I turned the reigns over to Ken. From this point on, I just assisted by: having the blocks ready to lay, helping to mix mud, and keeping the mud joints clean and "pretty" in the spots they would be exposed for an extended period of time. 

These wood blocks are placed on both ends of a block line, with a string connecting the two. The string serves as a frame of reference (both vertically and horizontally) for placing the block.

The "chair" block is the 2nd layer of block set. As you can see in this photo, the block needs extra mud beneath it to reach the height of the yellow string.

We had visitors on Wednesday. Our future neighbors, Dan and Sharon, had no issue getting down and dirty:

Well, Sharon worked and Dan giggled

We took just one evening off last week (date night), and continued work on Friday evening.

Concrete Pour

We had the concrete poured this past Friday, and it may have been the most exciting thing during the construction process so far! I didn't want to miss it, so I bolted over there during my lunch break to catch some photos:

Now that the footers are filled with concrete, cinder blocks will be laid on top. We began laying some block this evening, and it was a much more tedious task than I expected. We're saving $2 a block by laying it ourselves, so it's kind of cool to count them all and tally up a dollar amount. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little smoother!

Finishing Footers & Laying Rebar

This is (finally) a wrap-up of the footer digging over the past couple of weeks. Nearly two weeks ago, we received our permit earlier than expected, so we had to go into digging overdrive. Ken hit the lot a few days after work to finish it up, and I helped him:

Lenny and Logan, some more new neighbors

Logan wanted to help

Measuring depth of the dirt from that yellow string, ensuring dirt is even and enough has been removed.

Okay, so this was a joke

We worked until nightfall that evening

We resumed our work a week later to complete the digging and clean out the footers all in preparation to lay the rebar, and ultimately pass our first inspection:

All those leaves and stuff had to be removed before we laid any steel. 

...So I had to get in there with a shovel to scoop it all out.

The next day we laid the rebar. It was by far the longest, most physically demanding day of work on the house so far. We worked from 9am-6:30pm, and were constantly stepping in and out of the footers making it a serious workout. As someone who exercises pretty often, my hamstrings were still sore 3 days later. (Now I understand why construction guys are so thin...) I didn't realize ahead of time how exhausting it would be, climbing up and down carrying a bunch of steel, but I should have thought about it before celebrating too much the night before on my birthday :) 

First we had to go around and place nails 12" from the floor of the dirt. These nails indicate the pour line of the concrete, to be poured after passing inspection of footers & rebar. 

After the nails were in place, we were able to remove that yellow string, making it a lot easier to move about the lot:

Next up was measuring and bending all this steel, based on which footer it needed to be placed in. With all that steel to lay, Ken was doubtful we'd finish it all in one day. I assured him we would. Little did I know what I was getting myself into...

After we laid the steel down, it had to be tied off to the "chairs" it sits on to make sure it doesn't shift or move anywhere once placed. This was done with little wire "twisty-ties". I realize now I should have taken pictures of the chairs and ties, but I was not in a picture-taking mood on Wednesday. I did take a couple photos of the finished product, and hopefully you can get the picture: 

These long, straight lines were obviously the easiest to work with. Not much measuring and certainly no bending to deal with.

The bends were certainly tougher to deal with.

As were these step-downs, where the elevation in the house changes. Both bars had to be bent the same 45 degree angles, which was challenging. 

But the most grueling may have been the front of the house, with all these 90 degree angles. I'm getting tired and hot just thinking about this, by the way.

In order to make the nails more visible in the dirt, we sprayed them with paint. This way the concrete guys know how much to pour.

It was a very tiring hard day's work but turned out to be worth it because we miraculously got it all done, and passed our first inspection the next day. Next up, pouring concrete!

Falling Behind

...Not on the house, but on this blog! I have a lot of catching up to do on here, but here are a couple quick updates: 

• Finished digging footers last week
• Laid rebar yesterday
• Passed first inspection today
• Concrete gets poured next!

Things are moving right along. We took a quick trip to Home Depot tonight to look at some stuff, and every time I get anywhere near counter tops, cabinetry, or paint colors I hyperventilate a little- too many choices! I'm glad these choices don't have to be made until later, because they completely overwhelm me. 

I'll try and get my act together in the next few days and post the couple days worth of work we've done since last week.

A Great Saturday- Part 2

This is a continuation of Saturday's stuff. We were there for so long and did so much it didn't make much sense to cram it all into one post. After a satisfying Subway lunch (which by the way, has been where we've eaten every day we have worked at the lot...they need to bring back those frequent customer cards), we finished our work:

After repainting the shutters and door on the shed, I went back and fixed all my slip-ups (there were quite a few of them...I already said I wasn't a very good painter!)

This is the finished product:

I was thrilled to finally be finished, but most of all I was happy about being satisfied with the whole thing. After painting it the first time and not being 100% happy with it, I was frustrated. I'm glad we decided on exterior paint colors for the house, but now we have to figure out what we want to paint which color. That may take some more experimenting :)

After the kids left, Ken and I stuck around until my Aunt Sherri and cousin Wanda arrived for a quick hello. He couldn't sit still, so he picked up the shovel again. I was DONE working for the day, so I took pictures :)

I don't think I've ever seen someone with a shovel smile so big

After we cleaned up and went to dinner, we headed back to the lot for some final brush burning. We officially have nothing to haul away now!

Sunday we played hooky and went to the beach, with just a bit of footers left to dig. As luck would have it, we received the permit earlier than expected. So, we've done a little digging a couple days after work this week to catch up (I'll post on this before the weekend). Next week we hope to lay steel then pour concrete which, should be exciting!