5.30.2015

Jim and I love the weather here - we see the beauty in the cold and snow, the foggy mornings, even the rainy days.  Typically it doesn't matter too much - until you want to pour concrete.  On Thursday when we postponed the concrete pour, the forecast for Monday was for cooler with 0% chance of rain.  This morning the weather showed 100% chance of rain for Monday!  We were crushed.  We are so ready for this pour and the forecast isn't cooperating.  The worst part is that we are at the mercy of the concrete contractor and his schedule.

But you have to press on.  Jim had put some spray foam in all the corners of the deck last night - this morning he cut all the expanded parts out.  Little more finishing touches all the time.

One of our goals soon is to move the water line back - we were going to put it up where you see the line now but wanted to move it back to be able to bury it a little deeper to prevent any freezing issues.  So Jim marked off the digging area.

After lunch, we decided to move our cold-formed steel studs up to the top near the deck.  Hopefully if we can ever get concrete poured, this will be our next step!  We had some extra pallets from the scaffolding delivery, so Jim divided up the steel into 3 different sections - this wider steel will actually be floor joists for the stairwell landing.

These are the regular wall studs...

So once we got them loaded up on the pallets, we moved the pallets up top.  Then when we're ready for them, Jim can just use the Bobcat forks and lift the whole thing up onto the deck ready for building!

The last section is the heaviest gauge steel - Jim is screwing two pieces together to make a double wall studs - these will go under the trusses, because they will have to carry the most weight.

 

As Jim put them together, we moved them to another pallet on the Bobcat forks.  We cut the afternoon short though because it started raining - so we decided to go to church this evening.

 

We did get some good news - Jim texted the concrete contract about the weather and he replied back that he had already canceled for Monday.  He said the weather forecast looks good mid-week.  That made us feel good - he's on top of things and taking care of them.  Plus we won't have to wait too long to get back on his schedule.  Hope for clear skies!!

 

High 85/Low 64 - few showers around

 

5.29.2015

Jim headed to the land very early this morning in order to get the truck warmed up and head to his inspection appointment.  But it was all worth it - it passed!  That's a huge relief - if it didn't, Jim would have to figure out how to fix whatever was wrong - not easy when there's no place to work and no real tools.  So that's a big check mark done.

He then put up the posts he picked up at the barn last night...you can see they are on concrete blocks and then they are screwed up to the beam.

This is a terrible picture, but it brought a smile to our faces.  When Jim was down at the barn, he found the Craftsman clock the kids bought him years and years ago.  It's hung in every workshop ever since so it's only fitting that it has a place of honor in the carriage house.

Jim spent time doing administrative work today while he was at the land - back to looking for supplies for next steps.  One important one is getting the concrete sealer.  You would think that the price the contractor gave would include sealing the concrete but no, that's apparently our job.  So Jim was making calls and trying to find what he wanted - and then drove to go look at one and purchase it.  He's going to talk to the contractor Monday and see if there's a specific kind he has had good luck with, but at least we have some on hand now.  Plus he spent awhile on the phone to the engineer at the concrete plant discussing exactly the size stone and mixture he wants for the concrete pour.

We did more backfilling today.  Jim spent awhile doing some grading in the front and then we moved around to the side corner.  It's really getting filled in.

Jim had to improvise cutting down a couple of limbs that were in the way - standing in the bucket of the Bobcat!

A couple of shots at the end of the day...

Our dirt piles are gone except for the ones we'll use to fill in the back!

 

High 81/Low 61

 

5.28.2015

With the concrete pour postponed until Monday, Jim has a little bit of breathing room and a little time to catch up on some things that have been put on the back burner since he's been working long hours every day trying to get ready for the pour.

This morning, he went to the insurance company and put insurance back on the box truck.  In NY, you can turn in your license plates if you suspend your insurance (for cars that aren't driven in winter, for example) - then you can get new plates when you get insurance again.  Plus, it's hard to believe, but it's been 2 years since Jim got license plates for his work 4Runner - he did that when we were still living in Ohio but starting our transition to NY.  So he went to the DMV to get all that taken care of.

Once he got back to the land, he did quite a few things done....like trying to use the leaf blower to clean out all the tree droppings that have fallen in there over the last months.  But although it didn't end up raining, it was pretty windy today and blew more around than it cleaned out!

Jim spent some time working on the risers for the septic tank.  Unfortunately, he had to chip away some of the cement from the casting to make them fit but he got them on.  He wants to do a little more tweaking but they look good.

He put together this pressure gauge and connected it to the manifold.  He put air in the lines and the pressure held steady - so no leaks thankfully!  He'll have to watch this carefully during the concrete pour to make sure they don't accidentally damage one of the Pex tubes.

We drove the box truck to see if we could get it inspected (you have to do that yearly).  This was the first time Jim had driven it since he replaced the power steering over the winter.  He said it worked great - it was so good to get some of those things done in the cold months so that they are ready when we need them now!  Unfortunately, the guy was busy and couldn't inspect it right then so Jim has an appointment for early in the morning.

After we got back from that, we went back to backfilling.  We decided to do a little bit on the front of the carriage house.

We stopped at this point because Jim wants to figure out exactly how he wants to do the grading for now in this area.

So we moved around to the side and continued working there.  At the end of the day, we got quite a bit more done!

The view of the front from on top...

Kind of a red letter day - we got to take down all the caution tape that we had put up when we first started digging for the carriage house space over a year and a half ago!  There's no more big holes and it was getting in the way.

 

Jim went to the barn at the end of the day - he knew he had some jack posts there but wasn't sure how accessible or easy they would be to find.  He ended up finding them along with a tiny box of the necessary hardware for them - if you saw the barn, you'd know what a feat this was!  He will probably use this posts for some more shoring.

 

High 80/Low 54

 

5.27.2015

Jim started the day off by going to pick up some more cold-formed steel for more shoring posts.

It's hard to see from this picture, but the new shoring posts go in the middle of each of the scaffolding towers and are again fastened to the stringers.  Jim got all of the posts assembled, put into place, and fastened down today - a lot of work on a warm day.

 

Our concrete pour was scheduled for tomorrow, but the forecast is for rain.  Jim has tried texting and calling the contractor for the past two days.  It's so frustrating how so few people seem to respond and communicate - especially when it's a business arrangement.  But he finally called this afternoon and they postponed the pour until Monday.  That will give Jim some breathing room on last minute tweaks.  The weather is supposed to be dry and cooler - a needed combination for concrete.

 

High 84/Low 65



5.26.2015

Well...today started out with me finding a tick on the back of my neck!  Suffice it to say that I totally freaked out!  I told Jim we would have to scrap the building project and move to a concrete jungle somewhere.  Okay, maybe not, but I was still totally creeped out, even though I don't think he bit me.

 

But on to the day...Jim spent all day going over the shoring and screwing all the stringers together.  You can see how many screws he put in just on this one side - it's of course repeated on the other side and over every stringer connection.

He also put stringers connecting the secondary shoring posts together and then to the wall - and he did this for each tower.

Later in the afternoon, in anticipation of cutting a little grass later on, Jim needed to switch out the good mulching blades for the original blades on the mower.  There are still rocks hiding and there's no sense ruining the good blades at this point.

But necessity is the mother of invention - Jim didn't have jacks here and needed to get underneath the mower.  So he drove it onto the bucket of the Bobcat and then lifted it up!

After that, it was time to move more dirt...

...which means you have to move more rocks....

But at the end of the day, dirt piles are disappearing and things are really taking shape!

 

High 87/Low 67

 

5.25.2015

Happy Memorial Day!  Hopefully everyone said a prayer of thanks to all the service men and women.  My personal heroes...Jim (Air Force), my dad (Air Force) and Jim's dad (Merchant Marines).

 

Jim headed to the barn this morning - he had a few things to pick up, including concrete sealer.  He also picked up some square bar he had there and did some tweaking to one of the towers.

After lunch, we got busy on more backfilling and grading.  Jim wanted to expand the side of the sewer pipe trench to give more room for him to put the insulation down. 

Then he put a layer of sand down over the pipe.

Then the insulation....

...and more sand on top of that.

Then he extended the electric conduit out more so we could do some backfilling.  Here he's gluing the pipes together...

And more sand!

Then backfill, picking out all the rocks of course.

Then he was able to get around the back and work on a little bit of grading.

Wow!  Looks good!  We've used up all our dirt piles around this area so this is going to be good for awhile until we create some more dirt.

Since we were in the mode and were already dirty, we decided to do some more backfilling around the side of the carriage house.  We are very careful to keep any rocks away from the dimple board.

This area is looking great too - we expanded it quite a bit today and got rid of a huge dirt pile!

 

High 81/Low 64

 

 

5.24.2015

Jim started the day by building forms for the concrete that will go underneath the door.  Again, we'll pour this with leftover concrete from the deck pour.

Then it was back to work on backfilling and grading.  Today we turned our attention to around the tank.  Jim put gravel at the bottom next to the tank....

...and then dirt on top of that - again picking out any rocks near the tank.

After Jim got partway up on the front side of the tank, we went around to the backside so that there wasn't too much pressure on just one side of the tank from the backfill.

Jim has to build up a lot around the tank - we'll be covering the entire tank plus at least halfway up the risers. 

Once things got built up a little, he put dirt over the distribution box.

After he got things behind the tank built up enough to where he could get the Bobcat close to the tank, he started the process again.  First, gravel...

...and then dirt, building up until he could get the Bobcat close enough to the other side of the tank and put more gravel.

With a little hand shoveling for good measure!

Lots of gravel around the tank at the side so the pipes won't get moved out of place when all the dirt is on top of them.

Sorry, Mom, for all the dirty clothes - ha!  Jim made me play in the dirt!

We then had to pick up a couple of Bobcat loads of all the rocks we got out.  The grading is really taking shape - unfortunately, we had to stop a little early.  The Bobcat just about ran out of fuel and we went to church this evening.

 

High 79/Low 53

 

And just a note...LeBron James wasn't the only one feeling like this after the Cavs beat the Hawks in overtime in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference game.  Whew...Go Cavs!