Footings

Some exciting progress here, chez DG. The rain we got last week softened the ground significantly, and we were able to get the holes for the deck footings finished. That coupled with M's Dad's desire to spend a day as DG Helper means that we are on the schedule for a footing inspection this afternoon. If we pass (I guess I should say WHEN we pass) we can start pouring concrete over the next few days. And once the footings are complete, that means the deck construction can start, and once the deck is finished, the siding can be finished. Etc, etc.

View from back yard looking at back of house. Hard to see holes. Willie on right.

Though pictures of holes in the ground are not the most exciting fodder, in the interest of keeping you up to date, here are the 12 beauties! I should note that at 5:30 pm, we thought it was going to be a simple "place rebar into holes" task. But somehow, about 9 of the holes were a bit too small, so the manual labor (read: M and K) went to work. By dark (about 6:30) we were finished. Between the digging and the sledgehammering (to break up old concrete to be reused in the holes), I'm surprised I'm not sore!

Note siding above windows and on dormer that's still not installed.

See the ledger board that runs low on the Tyvek? That's for the deck. It will go from the living room end of the house to just past the laundry room (the greenhouse window is the laundry room, the two-panel window in the center of the photo is the kitchen, and the narrow window at the far right of the photo is one of the windows that flanks the slider in the living room. The dormer above is one of the bedrooms.

It's a hole!

Willie monitoring the four right-hand holes.















Poor lighting on this photo, but this is from the back of the house, looking from the living room corner toward the laundry room and garage. The slider at the right in the photo is the living room. the door facing the photographer is the laundry room door. The garage is just beyond the laundry room.

Recycled concrete rubble getting ready to help support rebar in holes.

Rebar all tied off and waiting to go into the holes. Fascinating stuff, huh?

This is about the point where we realized that about 9 of the 12 holes were a bit too small. Note how light it is here.

Holes made bigger, rubble in place, rebar positioned for inspection. Note how dark it is starting to look  (photo taken with flash). We nearly ran out of time.

It's dark, and we finished. WHEW!
Hopefully this afternoon's inspection will go off without a hitch and by the weekend we'll have 12 shiny new deck footings. Ah, the glamor of home building!


(Sorry for the spacing issues--I'd love to know more about Blogger and how to fix these, but I haven't been able to troubleshoot my way through it!)