Stones

December 27 - Today was frustrating.  Berne had asked the excavator to set aside some large stones that he unearthed.  Alyssa had gone out one cold night and with much difficulty dug out some large stones by hand and set them aside with some other large stones dug up by the excavator.  Well, they are all gone, except three small ones Alyssa dug up (below).  Alyssa had landscaping plans for the stones, and saw the stones as a kind of compensation for the destruction of our side garden.  Stones like that are very expensive to buy, and it is difficult to find ones that match the stones we have dug up and used elsewhere in our garden. 

Our large hydrangea and spirea shrubs as well as other perennials are decimated.  Our second hydrangea (and many of the lilacs) has damage to it's branches, but it should recover.  We'll see what might have survived come spring. 

Boxing Day Back Fill

These guys are hard workers.  You can see the paint on the foundation walls that Berne's brother painted on Christmas Eve.  The excavating sub contractor was here this morning, back filling around the foundation walls as well as filling in the interior of the foundation with stone.  I feel a bit bad for our neighbors hoping for a quiet Boxing Day.  You can see it better from the upstairs window (below).  Here they are also laying the drainage around the foundation.  Hopefully this will help with some of our basement water issues.

Say a little prayer for the garden.  Alyssa was able to move some of the plants but most remain.  (She was sick most of October with bad colds and then winter came early.)  We could see roots when they were digging today.

Here is what it looks like in early summer.

Here is a video of some of what has been happening the past couple of days.  Alistair took some of the video too.

Day of Rest

It is Sunday.  The last Sunday in Advent, and a day of rest on the construction site.  All is quiet.  The blue tarp is covering the playroom window, casting a strange blue light in the room.  The blue tarp is also covering the window by our Christmas tree.

Removing the Concrete Forms

This morning Paul and his guys cleaned up the basement and removed all the concrete forms inside and out.  It rained all day, but the tarp Berne and Justin put on yesterday kept the water out.

Foundation Walls

Our yard was full of pick up trucks again today.  When Berne measured again this morning, he discovered that the wall between the living room and playroom is not square to the exterior wall.  In a 150 year old house, this is not surprising.  He is going to construct the new wall square and tweak the existing wall with tapered framing to make it less noticeable.  Paul and his team built the foundation wall framing before lunch.

The concrete delivery was a couple of hours late.  If it had only been ten minutes later, Alistair and Charlotte could have seen them pour the foundation walls, but they just saw the very end.

 (and Evelyn and I missed it since we were at the bus stop picking up Alistair and Charlotte)

Alistair did get to watch Paul's guys fill the low knee walls and attempt to inject concrete in the forms along the brick foundation walls.  (He took some of these pictures as well as some video.)  There was concrete everywhere, but Paul said that it would clean up easily tomorrow.

Concrete Footings

Today was another big day.  With so much happening, it's difficult to believe that this is only day two.  This morning they took some detailed measurements (through the open windows, which amused Evelyn) and built the forms for the concrete footings.  Berne used our old fence (that he had already repurposed to hold down the tarp) to create a safety fence of sorts.  Evelyn waited patiently for the cement mixer to come.

Evelyn loved watching the guys spray, shovel and smooth the concrete.  She thought it looked kind of gross when it first came out of the hose.  They guys put rebar in the finished concrete and then covered it up with blankets.

Digging Day

And so it begins.  By eight o'clock this morning at least five pick up trucks had descended on our front yard, and soon a large group of Carhart wearing workmen were banging away in our basement and digging outside.  The digging went fairly smoothly (it seems that the urban myth that our side yard was a gully filled in with soil from across the street might be true based on the sandy, relatively rock free soil).  The main issue was that our sewer pipe is exactly where the footing was supposed to be.  The decision was made to have the footing six inches above the pipe.

In the basement, the men built forms up against the brick foundation.  Because we only have a single layer of 150 year old brick holding up our house, the structural engineer recommended that the foundation wall be reinforced with concrete.  The new concrete slab will also be exerting a lateral force up against the wall.  While they are down there pouring concrete, we also asked that they create a small knee wall.  It turns out that our basement floor is four to six inches below the bottom of the boulder foundation.  They also demolished buried cinder blocks that held up the oil tanks we removed last year.

An Excavator Appears

Yesterday, the City of Lebanon issued our building permit, and today an excavator magically appeared in our front yard.  How I didn't hear it while I was wrapping presents, I'm not sure.

It's hard to believe that this is happening.  Time to finish emptying out the basement for some concrete work.