Snow Again!

Suprise snow this morning. It did seem a little cooler yesterday but I did not expect the white stuff today. Just a light dusting so it shouldn't stop any progress :-)

Continued the footing drain from the new retaining wall to the east side of the house. This will run down the side of the house and in to the backyard eventually.

Leveled out the garage area to rough grade so it is ready for the new slab and started breaking out the old foundation where the master walk-in-closet will be.

Used the fill to start levelling the area where the Storage Room and Media Room (otherwise know as Tif's Meditation Room) will eventually be located.

A Front Yard

I have completed lots of cleanup out front. The drain is finished and now buried under the dirt from the piles in the front. I also finished removing the last of the rockery and piling it up out front for use later. There is still lots of fill needed but you can start to get an idea what the yard might look like.

I am thinking of putting a pond with water storage in the lower garden to the left of the wall.

(This will capture all the roof runoff from a drain by the house entrance)

The far end of the yard is about 2-3' below the final grade.

(the ramp is ready for future use!)

10 Yards of Gravel

Soooooooooo, 10 yards is a lot of gravel. Especially if you have to move it into the trench at the bottom of the foundation wall to surround the footing drain. I am about halfway done with moving the gravel and it should be done tomorrow. Then I can put some fabric on top of the gravel to keep soil out and backfill a little to keep it in place. We shouldn't have any water problems down the road :-)Half the pile is gone already

Footing Drain and Gravel going in

Drainboard and "knowing the client"

1. Drainboard

So this is what went on the outside of the concrete wall over the spray-on waterproofing. It's a plastic honeycomb with a fabric on the outside to keep the dirt out. It allows any water to run down the face of the wall and then into the footing drain, thusly keeping the wall dry. Pretty ingenious.

2. Knowing the client

Earlier I mentioned that I put a sketch up on the fence for the neighbors to see what we are planning. Many people have been stopping by to check it out but I noticed one problem. People were turning their heads to view the drawings........................being the good architect I did the drawings with north facing up. The only problem is that when you are standing on the sidewalk you are looking.......you guessed it, south! Some quick re-lettering and cutting and pasting and I have fixed it up so it makes more sense. Gotta take care of the client ya know :-)

What have I been doing??

Well when the concrete contractor was here I stayed out of the way for the most part. I sawcut the old foundation and generally cleaned up. After they removed their forms I needed to break off the foundation ties that were used to hold the forms in place. One kind was just a metal rod which was no problem. In the areas that the wall will be exposed they put a rod with a plastic cone to add some detail to the wall. BIG PROBLEM for me! They were hard to bust off and get the cones out. Here is a before and after shot. Lots of swinging with the sledge hammer, prying and cussing and they are all done. I will grind and clean it all up later.

Concrete Walls & Waterproofing

The concrete walls and footings are now complete and the contractor has removed all their forms. Everything turned out pretty good. A couple of minor errors that I can work around but the main wall turned out real good. The exposed areas got chamfered edges and today the waterproofer came and did their thing. The exterior got a silver foam like spray everywhere and in addition the main wall where the house is got a fabric drain board. It all looks great and I don't think we will ever have any water problems.

The Application of waterproofing. Note the dusting of snow ;-(

Drain board fabric on the right wher the house addition will be

View from new storage room looking through addition under the new garage.

Concrete in those Forms!

A quick update. The forms and rebar were done yesterday and they poured the concrete today. The forms will be stripped tomorrow and then we will have one tall wall in our front yard! :-)

View from the end of the house

with retaining wall in the foreground

Photo from driveway

Photo from the curb level. Top of the wall is about 6"down on the forms so the drive will slope down to the street about 1' +-...............just as planned :-)