Framing to Start today!

Monday night we didn't go out because it was too cold. On Tuesday, the pea gravel was delivered, so it's ready for this weekend. Tuesday night Shawn went out there to dig out the window wells that need to go in front of the Office and Back Bedroom windows on the South West Wall. I joined him after Evan went to bed. It was very hard work. So 3 or 4 tons of dirt were shoveled out and carried by bucket and dumped (Shawn did his little earth quantity calculations at work!)

Yesteday Shawn stayed home to build the frames for the window wells, and I left work after lunch and joined him. Shawn had one window well box installed when I got home. You see that red bucket in the picture? That's what we used to dump dirt out. We had to shovel out some more dirt for the second window well to fit. Then while Shawn worked on framing the second window well box, I continued caulking and taping the windows and waterproofing on that wall.

The skid loader that we rented for the week arrived today, and Evan (and the cats, of course), had to check out what Dad was up to. Bandit even hopped in there to ride with Shawn for a while.

The framer is supposed to be coming out today to start setting the floor, and we had forgotten to take out the forms for the beams from the wall. So Shawn went out there early this morning before leaving for work to pop those out. And guess what? One of the beam pockets didn't get concrete underneath it, like it should. So we called the basement contractor, and he said he will send out someone today to patch it.

We are expecting a call from the framer to get an update and see if he will even be there today or not. We'll see.

Anyway, the ground is starting to freeze and we needed to backfill before then, but since weather has delayed us so much we are cutting it close, perhaps we missed our opportunity.
So, late or not, we will be backfilling this weekend, we have help coming over. Yeap, Pam and Derald are once again coming over to rescue us... er... I mean, help us to get the work done. Also, Shawn's younger brother Brian will be here Friday and Saturday, and by golly, if we're not going to get that basement backfilled! Frozen dirt or not!