I have a foundation!

And walls!  Well, I have the framework for SOME walls.  But I have a foundation.  And those are very important, as it turns out.  And they take a LONG time to do.

Last week, there was NO parking on my street within several houses of ours.  And I am still planning on making cookies or something as a thank you/sorry for the trouble/please don't hate me thing for the neighbors.  Why was there no parking?  Because on any  given day, the following trades were at my house:  Carpenters (who are here every day), electricians, concrete guys, and some other random people just wandering in with construction stuff.  Oh!  And there was a backhoe (NOT a bulldozer) in my yard for 2 weeks.  I love having my own backhoe.  Ya gotta  admit, it's kind of cool.  But this isn't about the backhoe.  This is about the foundation.   

I wanted a slab.  The idea of another crawlspace, well, no.  It's just not going to happen.  Not after the incident with the possum.  I will never again provide shelter to scary rodents.  So to have a slab, first they need to dig a hole.  A big hole.  A really big hole.  And lots of smaller holes.  And the holes need to be inspected (and we passed, natch).  Then the HVAC guy comes and puts in ductwork.  And the inspector comes back and is sent away, because when they were moving a big piece of concrete, they, um, accidentally dropped it on the duct.  And squished it.  And that was bad.  So the HVAC guy had to come back and do it again.  I was not here for that part, but I am pretty sure he was REALLY not happy about it.  Because it took him all day to get it just right (you can see it the other post below).  But he did fix it.  And when I came home, the ducts were covered with dirt.  And the gigantic pile of dirt that was next to my house was nicely leveled out back in the giant hole.

And then the concrete started.  And stopped.  Because the truck broke.  Which was kind of funny, because the kids and I were watching out the back window (since we no longer have cable, this is our primary source of entertainment), and when it started pouring, Ian said, "wow, that's a lot of concrete!" and then the concrete guys (my guys, not the one with the truck) figured out the same thing and immediately started waving and shouting at the truck guy, but it was too late.  It snapped.  So instead of filling the gigantic hole easily with a chute of concrete, instead, they had to do it a wheelbarrow at a time.  And they did.  And they were here for a VERY long time.  I was really impressed.  These guys have a much stronger work ethic than I do (notice I'm blogging, and not editing).  

p.s. - We now have electricity in the downstairs bathroom!  We don't have any light fixtures, just holes for them, but that's a whole other story.

Fortunately, I can sit down.

Because tonight I had to go to the bathroom in the dark.  There is no electricity in my bathroom.  Which, this afternoon, didn't seem like a big deal.  But now... well... it kinda is.  Especially because that's where the laundry is.  And we haven't done it in a while.  And from the looks of things, it might be a while before we can do it again.  

So today, they tore the roof off the bathroom to get it ready to have a second floor put on top.  And inside, they found a nice little nest of mice living in the insulation, and eating the wires.  Yes, live wires.   I wonder how long it would have been before we had a fire, had they not torn this part down?  I'm so glad they did!  While not nearly as annoying as the stinky possum living in the crawlspace, this is a bigger deal.  If only the mice were as cute as the HouseMouse books.  "Has there been a party in your attic?  And a fire on your roof? Maybe you should look around... there's a mouse in the house, and there are clues to be found."  (This quote will mean nothing to most of you. But Lori knows what I'm talking about.)  :)

Yesterday, they were pouring footers.  In the middle of a footer is my son's initials.  Literally in the middle.  They poured half of it.  And left.  While they were gone, he wrote his name with a stick (and me worrying the entire time that he was going to fall in, and how was I going to explain THAT bit of supermom parenting to the paramedics?)  but he didn't fall in.  And today they came back and put the rest of the footers on top.  So it's like a secret written in the stone, that only he and I will ever see.  And I didn't even take a picture.  (Because then it wouldn't be a secret anymore.)

I Hate The Noise

It was Josie's first complete sentence (that we could understand).  What was the noise?  Construction.  Drilling.  Hammering.  Bulldozers (although Ian insists that the thing I call a bulldozer is not, in fact, a bulldozer.  It's some other thing I can never remember the name of.  Neither here nor there, really.)

So it's been a month.  Our house has gone from completely livable (with mildly annoying issues) to, well, the opposite of that.   It started slowly, with a 3-week delay starting on day 1.  (yes, day 1.)  Which actually wasn't a bad thing, because we got used to using the half-constructed back side of the house as a giant covered porch.  And being able to go from the outside straight into the bathroom has its benefits when you've got young children.   I miss that part.  Because here is where we are now: