This past week and weekend

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Monday and Tuesday night (OCT 6th and 7th) it rained so we didn't work outside. We did go to Lowe's and Menards to look at entry door systems. Entry doors are pricey, and of course, the look I want is the most expensive because of sidelights and transoms, and glass, and such. So we are looking at Peachtree, Thermatru, and Pella doors. The ones that we quoted from Lowe's and Menards were very expensive. So now we're waiting for our window supplier to give us a quote on Thermatru. We're going with fiberglass doors and the really nice ones almost look like wood. Of course, I grew up surrounded by Honduran Mahogany (the best!) and I love the look of Mahogany, and thermatru makes these fiberglass doors that look exactly like Mahogany. But talk about $$$$$$$$$$. The cheapest fiberglass doors are smooth, and they look nice too. So I gave our window supplier ten different door configurations with glass etc. to quote (I think he hates me now). We'll see what we end up with.

We also contacted the flatwork guy and talked to the plumber about radiant heat pipe installation for the slab.

On wednesday, Shawn stayed home and worked on one more door buck, got that installed, got the walls plumb and straightened as much as he could. Thursday night after work, I helped him measure the garage and he installed the track for the first row.

On Friday, he and Brian got all of the outside corners of the basement walls covered with plywood and began to lay the perimeter board (which is a 2x4 that goes around the top of the wall for stability.)

Derald again surprised us by calling on Friday night and offering their help for Saturday if we wanted them. So of course we said yes, and they came over on Saturday morning.

Shawn and Derald worked on finishing the last of the plywood corners and worked on the perimeter board.





























Evan and Pam had a good time, and came out to check the progress and play outside.






Since my Birthday is on Oct. 12, Pam baked some yummy pumpkin bars and we had a small celebration during lunch.
Friday night when I was working on the garage I realized that I was going to run out of block! So Saturday morning I called the contractor and told him. I can't complain about the level of service from our contractor and his suppliers. They may not know how to lay a square footing, but at least they have an excellent customer service. Jon called his rep who was in Canada on vacation. The rep called the factory and got a hold of a second shift employee. The company that makes the blocks is located about a half hour from our place, and although the part of the plant that makes the blocks was closed, another area that makes something else out of EPS foam was running the seconf shift. So the rep found someone who had keys to the block warehouse, and around 2:30 pm I took the Orange Crush and headed up there to get the blocks I needed.
I got back around 4 and worked on getting the garage wall done.

Pam and Derald left Saturday night, and by that time they had finished all of the perimeter board installation. They also got all of the walls to the correct dimensions +/- a half inch on some of them, which according to our contractor thats good. I had called him earlier concerned that this one wall was one inch too big, and what to do about it. You have to give him credit for being honest. He told me that there was something I needed to keep in mind since we were doing it ourselves. I thought he was going to say that because we're doing ourselves we are probably making more mistakes since we've never done this before. Instead, he said that since we are doing it ourselves, we are seeing a lot more than we should. If we were to be buying this house already built we would never know that the wall is an inch bigger, or that another wall wasn't perfectly plumb! So we have probably been more picky and more thorough than they would have been. I just shake my head at that.

So here's a picture of us just before Pam and Derald left. You can see the plywood that was installed on the corners for bracing and the perimeter board at the top.














SUNDAY OCT 12th

Shawn worked on something or other Sunday morning (can't really think of what right now so I'll have to ask).

Here's the garage frost wall almost done. You can see at the front a square opening. That's for the garage doors.

The garage frost wall is only 5' high, so the footings are about four feet higher than the level of the basement. You can see a gap between the garage and the house. At this spot, the garage frost wall jumps down to the level of the basement. That's what we worked on while Evan took a nap in the afternoon. We got one side done, and I worked on the other for a little bit after Evan woke up. Then Shawn took over and I helped randomly while Evan was with us outside.

Afer Evan went to bed, we went back out there and finished the garage wall, got the perimeter board installed, and braced it against the dirt because the wind was blowing really hard and it almost took the wall with it, and there was supposed to be a Thunderstorm on Mondary afternoon.