With new attitudes, fresh bodies and a thermos-full of coffee, we all headed out to the site in the morning. Kyle and Julia got busy taking down the plywood garage door.
As well as the side wall....
After getting the walls down, they moved indoors and started dismantling the last two scaffolding towers - look at the crazy big space now!
Meanwhile, Jim and I headed up to the deck to work on strapping again - with a new plan. First, he attached the gusset plate to the outside - from the inside. Well, sort of, since he's hanging on top of the wall!
These pieces of strapping look light, but they are heavy-gauge. Plus you have to be careful not to bend them or they would be worthless for the job they are intended for.
We got the strapping into place and then Jim got busy screwing it down.
With that corner done, time to move the scaffolding down and work on the next corner. Here he's screwing the gusset plate down.
This new method worked so much better! Before lunch, even with early-morning tours, job assignments and breaks - we had one strapping done and the next started.
After lunch, it was time for clean up of the ground floor. Jim brought the Bobcat that was loaded with all the steel studs we had taken out up to the steel pile. Julia and I sorted and stacked all the pieces. Meanwhile, Jim and Kyle loaded the steel beams that were on top of the scaffolding towers into the Bobcat to be moved up.
We moved out tools and whatever we could from the space - some we will move into the truck and the shed for the time being. Unfortunately, when we go to pick up the foam for the floor next week, we'll have to empty out the truck again.
Then it was time to take some laser measurements to start getting the floor ready for concrete. Jim and Kyle set up two posts in the middle of the floor with a string attached to a screw marking the right level. Then Kyle and Julia worked on marking the walls all the way around with that level. Then they struck a chalk line on the wall so that we had the 4" slab thickness set.
Bringing in some small pea gravel to fill in any low spots.
Back dragging and getting everything to the right level.
This is how we figured out the level. I held the string that was attached to the post in the middle next to the chalk mark on the wall. Then Julia measured various distances along the line to make sure that everything was the right height. Some places required hand work where the Bobcat couldn't reach or where just a little needed to bee taken off or smoothed.
At the end of the day, the floor was looking amazingly flat. We'll finish working on it tomorrow. We did more clean up and then Julia and I headed home for a well-deserved shower and to start dinner.
Jim and Kyle stayed to finish screwing the strapping down. This picture shows how many screws are in the strapping/gusset plate corner!
Jim working on screwing the strapping down. Kyle used this as his Instagram picture today!
We were all thrilled with the day's accomplishments - and this was the one-year anniversary of our building permit!
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