Operation Bigger House: The Basement

I'm a little slow with this update because, quite frankly, the movement of a pile of dirt from here to there is not much of an update. And, there's the small issue that I wasn't really home during the daylight hours until Friday of last week to take new pictures. But enough excuses.. here's what's happened since the my last update.

We have an almost-basement!


Basement walls.


Once the hole for the basement was finished, the washing machine drain re-routed, the footers poured, and some of the dirt pile distributed to the low spots in our backyard (making it a vast expanse of red dirt, but whatever), an eighteen-wheeler load of concrete blocks showed up last Monday morning. Two days later the walls were complete.



Waterproofing

Then a load of gravel was delivered and part of it was spread as the beginning of the basement floor. At that point, there was some waiting for a termite pre-treatment and an inspection/survey that was required by the county.

During the waiting, the lower half of the basement walls were waterproofed and a French drain was installed around the perimeter (I forgot to take a picture of that, sorry.). Yesterday was Columbus Day, and apparently that's a county holiday, so we didn't get the official blessing to pour the basement floor and finish the upper portion of the walls yet. However, there was a sheet of plastic and a layer of wire (like you might use to build a goat pen) put down over the gravel. That was yesterday. I also had a visit from the carpentar yesterday (I was working from home); he just came by to check it out.


Looking through the basement door


It is my understanding that both the cement man and the carpentar are just waiting for the go-ahead to swoop in and complete the next phase in this project, and they would have started yesterday (stinking holiday).

On the inside, we (Dave) cleaned out the basement closet that will be the access to the new space. That hole hasn't been cut in the wall yet because we don't fancy the thought of unsecured access to our belongings, but it will be on the other side of that sheet of plywood you see stuck to the wall in this picture (looking through the basement door).  This new basement space will remain unfinished so that Dave will have a place for his lawnmower and tools.




Piles of sand and gravel



Finally, here are the piles of sand and gravel, just waiting to be put to good use. 

That about covers weeks 2 and 3 of this project.