The day we poured the Cement Floor

Finally getting caught up again. Well, sorta!

The crew showed up that Saturday morning with a cement truck, a pumper truck and about 5 or 6 bodies to help with the work.

This is from the back of the house.



Ryder was pretty good about it - followed me around all day - but was really curious!



They had some trouble in the beginning when the pumper truck plugged up. Spent an hour unplugging it before they could start to pour.

But once the pour started - it took about 2 and a half hours to finish.....

And then three of the guys stuck around for about another 12 hours smoothing it all out.


And two days later, we got to take the hot water heater back down.....which was missed dearly!
And Ryder loves having "his" basement back so he can run around down there. 

And now the expensive stuff starts.....the re-building!!

Voila! By 1:00pm we had a cement floor!

The day has arrived!

Today is a big today.  Its Saturday Oct. 22nd and we are getting a cement floor in our basement!  I never thought I would be so excited to say those words!

The weeping tile is in, the plumbing and sewer is all brand new and the rebar is laid.

We are ready.

It's the freakiest thing to walk downstairs right now...... the landing is gone and you have to step onto that pail to get all the way down there.  You should have seen Ryder panic trying to get back upstairs.  He just jumped off the last step to go down - but when I went back up he just could not figure it out! It was too funny.

Check later for more pictures....... hopefully it looks a LOT different down here by the end of today!

Garden Life

We didn't get to plant much of a garden this year. The water sat on top of my garden for a good month after the June flood.  It wasn't until about July 10th that I really got to plant anything. And even then, it was just in desparation because there was no way we could till it before planting. It was just too wet.

In the end I was able to plant Onions, Beets, Carrots and Cucumbers.  Then, we transplanted some Tomato plants and green peppers that my MIL started for me.  She also started some cabbages, which I babied all summer!

The peppers were crazy........and the tomatoes were out of this world.  So far, I have made 18 jars of salsa, 6 jars of tomato sauce, and we have eaten a ton of them..... will be making a LOT more salsa this week and I think I'm going to attempt to make some spaghetti sauce.

More clouds

I took this picture with my iPod. We had some really weird and random clouds go by here yesterday. A few spits of rain and a bit of wind and that was it.

Summer 2011

Hens n'Chicks my MIL grew! I never knew they could be pink!

At the Bjorklund wedding! So pretty!

The candy bar

And the happy couple!

Just some random stuff

Now that the blog is up to date - I will continue to post pictures of the progress in our basement as it happens (or as money becomes available!)

Here are some random shots I got this summer............

One of the many storms to pass by this summer.

And another......

This is the corrosion from the spring floods.

MMMMmmmm Lemon Pie! :)

Plumbing - not very glamorous, but SO exciting!

Since we bought this house in 1999 we've had problems with the plumbing. The bathroom downstairs never worked properly and every spring we always had some sort of "sewer" issue that required snaking the line.

These pictures show the old plumbing - the cast iron, rusted out mess of crap! Literally!

Last weekend, we removed all the old.............


And replaced it with NEW!!

Total cost of plumbing:  about $1000

Tylenol and Massages

Just about the time you think the worst part is over - the trench for the weeping tile still had to be dug.  Again, I take no credit for this! 

Once the trench was dug, the weeping tile installed, then the rock had to be brought in to cover it all up....

It got pretty fancy! HaHa!

Found this old bottle of Guiness Whiskey in the dirt!

And this bottle of "Calgary" beer!
Wonder how many more we would find if
we kept looking!

Point of no return....

Once everything was moved out and the walls came down, we had to rent a jackhammer and start busting up the cement.  This was not a fun phase!

And I won't take credit for any of it! 

It was Messy!

and got messier.....

How sore do you think their arms were at this point?
Altogether, the hammering took two and a half days.
Cost: $300

And then came the nasty job of hauling it all out to the dump truck...by hand....

We had good hired help!  haha!

Block by block, pail by pail..... Cody H., Drew, Evert, Kerry, Niki and I hauled every piece of cement upstairs and out to the truck..... FOUR grain truck loads went to the dump!