The sound of rain pitter-pattering ...

INSIDE MY HOUSE!!!

Today it is rainiing and I have no wall in my bedroom, bathroom or kitchen. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that means: Water. In my house. All over my floors. Soaking my carpet. Splashing my toilet. Flooding my house.

We came home from Sunday dinner with Troy's family. This is what we came home to:As it continued to rain, it only got worse. We put the kids to bed. Their room, the laundry room, pantry and the living room were the only dry rooms. With them asleep, the real adventure began. Troy began using the big push broom to "sweep" the water out of the house. When it began pooling outside the door rather than draining like it used to before we dug up our yard and changed the "water flow paths." Troy took a shovel and created a trench to have the water drain to the back of the yard, while I got out she shop vac and bagan sucking up the huge puddles. We had to move a lot of furnature: my curio cabinet, our bookcase, and most everything out of our room.

After many hours of sweeping, shoveling and sucking water, we decided to call it a night and took a hot shower, and went to bed, anticipating sleeping only a few hours before awaking and repeating the process again.Luckily, we slept until early Monday (Labor Day) morning. We were planning on doing all the cleanup, inside and out, ourselves. But, in answer to many prayers, Troy's family called and announced that they would arrive within the hour to help with whatever we needed. Here is the disaster cleanup crew:

It's hard to tell who's who, but there's Brad the Dad, Emily, Tiffy, Troy (working behind Tiff) Amy, and Patrick, Tiffy's officially serious boyfriend. They all win the Golden Hammer of the Week Award, even though they didn't really build anything.
I was inside feeding the boys breakfast and keeping them out of the mud. Here's a view of Troy and Amy clearing off broken up cinder block, lumber, and concrete from the area we need to build the wall.
This is Troy sweeping rainwater out of the kitchen while the fascinated boys watch. Notice Timmy wearing his galoshes. He is prepared! Future Boy Scout in the making.

More Demolition?

Well, this is the progress we have made on the framing. We have 4 additional walls built that we haven't stood yet because we have to do some demolition first. Yes, I thought we were past that, too. But, I seem to have forgotten that the back wall of my existing home, the one I am living in , sleeping in, cooking in and half-heartedly cleaning, needs to be removed and replaced. So, rather than building this week, we have been installing bracing posts in preparation for the walls to come crashing down around me. (And I don't mean that figuratively.)Before Troy could install the posts in the kitchen, (Yes, they will be permanent fixtures until we move into the new house.) I had to empty the cabinets and drawers. He is being really nice and postponing the installation of the post that will be located behind the kitchen sink until it is absolutely necessary. My friend Tonya gave/loaned me a truckful of plastic storage crates, (you can see some on the counters) to temporarily store my cleaners, medicines, dishes, pots & pans, utensils, spices, Tupperware, cookbooks, baking ingredients, essentially EVERYTHING I normally keep in my kitchen. This is the main cause for the disarray.
To make our house more energy-efficient, we blew insulation into the space between the roof and the ceiling about 4 years ago. When he broke holes in the ceiling to support the roof with the beams, the insulation started falling out. The black garbage bags are for collecting it, and putting it back up in the small cavity around the post. They add such a nice touch to the decor, don't they?
Here is our bedroom. That door used to lead to our walk-in-closet, which has since been torn out. Yes, that is our bed. A saws-all and a shop vac are also present. Notice the nice plastic storage container. That one contains everything that used to fit under my bathroom cabinets before we shrunk the bathroom by 25 square feet.
Here is our first post. Notice the insulation-filled garbage bag? Like I said earlier: Permanent Fixture. *Sigh*
Here is the bedroom on Saturday morning. All 3 posts are installed and the warm, cheery sunshine in shining in through the hole in the wall! Troy spend most of Saturday on the roof, pounding out concrete, and in the bedroom battling with the walls. You can see some of the smaller holes. They grew.
As you can see, he won the battle, but it took a lot of effort. He broke the "Virtually Indestructible" handle of his 16 pound sledgehammer. He enjoyed a brief break while I went to Home Depot to return it. I was pleased that they exchanged it, no questions asked. It is only 5 years old. But, the label said it was indestructible. If you look closely into the gaping hole, you can see the bed we slept in Saturday night. It was so romantic to lie in bed and look up at the stars through the hole in the wall! We are not sure how many of the neighbors can see in. Hmmm...
We all climbed up on the roof yesterday, and although it was nerve-racking for me to have the boys up there, they had a blast. Timmy climbed up the chimney and looked down, and asked me if Santa lived down there. He doesn't.
This is what the back of the house looks like when you are standing in the new part. Every inch of white you see, and some that you can't see, needs to be torn out. We think this will be a fairly lengthy phase. See the two windows? When we build the wall to replace the cinder block one, those windows will not be re-installed. I am so sad about that. I love to look out the window while standing at the sink and admire our accomplishments. The boys love to climb onto the counter, sit next to the microwave and watch Daddy work. It is nice when Troy and I are out working on the house after Spencer is asleep and Timmy is watching a movie to peek in the window to check on him. I will really miss those windows. This was the first thing I saw when I awoke this morning. Did I mention that there are live electrical wires behind those posts that are now exposed?
No, I'm not stressed out. But thanks for asking.

The First "Real" Wall

I vacationed most of the month of July, so I was scarcely home. When I left for the first trip, this is what the house looked like:
When I returned home, Troy and his helpers had completed it to this point:
After returning from our family camping trip last Monday, we knew we needed to get to work, so after a full week of working, this is what our house looks like today:
We are very pleased with the progress. It it finally looking like we have accomplished something. All our other work (which was no easier than the walls we put up this weekend) was underground, so it somehow didn't have the same "Wow" factor.

My Sad Dad

This photo was taken at Christmas when we went to visit. I didn't get a picture of him this trip. Last Wednesday, my dad came into town for business. While using a borrowed pocket knife to cut a zip tie, his hand slipped and severed 2 tendons on his index finger of his left hand. He had planned on staying through the weekend to help Troy & me with the house, but it turned out, he spend the next 3 days in and out of the Emergency Room, surgery, and recovery. He wasn't able to help at all, and was soo sad about it. I felt bad, too. He was pretty uncomfortable all weekend, and was feeling more like a burden than a help. We were still happy to see him, but wish it had been under more favorable circumstances. Poor Daddy!

In a People House

Have you ever read this Dr. Seuss book? It is about a bird and a mouse that explore in a "People house." I would recommend it to any with little kids. When we dug our basement, we unintentionally evicted some birds from their homes. In their efforts at relocation, one young robin red breast decided to move in with us. I was confused at first when Timmy nonchalantly mentioned that there was a bird on the microwave. I glanced over and there was a real live, twittering, flapping bird.
I was a little worried about its health because it was battering itself attempting to fly through the glass window to get back outside. I opened the doors, thinking it would fly out the same way it came in. But, with us in the house, it was too fearful and wouldn't cross the kitchen or living room to get to the doors. Here is the bird on the corner of the fridgeSitting on our sam's club sized hand sanitizerOn top of the fridge again.

The boys thought it was awesome to have a bird in the house, especially since I don't let any animals in: no bugs, no dogs, no pets, no nothing! (We do have one pet crab, but it stays in its tank, especially after what happened to his superhero brother when he ventured out of the aquarium.) I am just not an animal person, so this noisy, active wild animal was great excitement and entertainment. Spencer even learned how to say "bird" when all this was going on.
Finally, I ventured over to the window it was beating itself against, and opened the window, and removed the screen. I placed the screen so the bird had only one place to fly to: toward the open window, and in a minute or two, the bird was happily back outside. It was easier than getting raccoons out of the chimney. What a relief!

Basement Photo Update

Big excavator loading all the cement into the dump truck
The huge construction equipment makes my little house look soooo tiny
This is Chad the driver of the big digger with Tim and Spencer.
There was a little down time while we waited for the dump trucks to return from their dumps.
The boys thought it was awesome to sit up in the cab with the driver.
We mentioned in another post that we hit water when we were digging. Here's the water; you can see it running into the home toward the top of the picture.
We had to fill the hole with gravel, then sand, then compact it down with the digger so we could have a 6 ft. crawlspace there instead of the 9 ft. basement ceiling we had planned.
Timmy loves to be right in the middle of it all
This isn't even the deep hole, but he looks like he's sure small.
Now filling the trucks with dirt
Digging for the footings in the front yard
The cousins came to watch the digger, too.
What is it about tractors that captivate the male species so well?
All the spectators
How romantic- me, my man, and a yard full of dirt. *sigh*
Wearing our fancy clothes
Down in the hole after it was dug, before the footings
See the little pipe sticking out the side of the hole? Guess what it is. MY SEWER LINE!! It has been 2 weeks, 3 days with no sewer. But who's counting...
The pumper truck to pump the cement into the footing forms
the forms
I was amazed at how tall those trucks rise
The cement trucks- there were 2 for the first set of footings, and 8 for the foundation walls.
Another great action shot taken by me- the cement plopping into the forms.
There was a crew of 4 doing the footings: one man to control the pumper truck, another one moving the hose the cement came from, one guy pushing the gravel down, and another floating, or smoothing the top. It was very cool to watch. I video recorded some of it, but need assistance from my tech support team (Troy) to upload them.
Putting up the foundation froms in the crawlspace
The rat maze
Up on top of the 9 ft. forms
Timmy in the Cat they used to backfill the backyard portion of the foundation
Spencer in the driver's seat of the Cat
The was the coolest thing. In order to get the Cat into the backyard, the big digger lifted it up and over the foundation walls, and set it down on the other side. It was amazing to watch. I was slightly worried about the weakest link in the chain, but, it held up just fine.
Up, up, and away
Just like a mommy picking up her baby- effortless!


Timmy was getting a little squeaky, so he greased his nose
Here's the front of our house- digger, dump truck, port-a-potty, all the makings of a proper construction zone
Loading up to leave- This huge one doesn't even use a ramp to get up onto the trailer
the future stairway for the outdoor basement entrance
The whole hole. This is the view from my roof.

This is why we can't flush the toilet, or use the sink, or the dishwasher, or the shower, or the washing machine. It would empty into our big hole and that would be more mess than any of us want to deal with.