And that about wraps it up for this "vacation"

We were originally intending to take the morning off yesterday and wander around downtown for a few hours, but when we got up and looked at our accomplishments thus far, decided to put in one last day of all-out work.

And ooh, boy! What a day it was...

It was while we were explaining our progress to friends over dinner on Friday night that we finally realized why this renovation has been so difficult to manage. It's because we're running two separate projects at the same time: the basement renovation on one end, and the perimeter drainage system on the other. In a way, this was preventing us from making significant progress on either one...

For example, the War Department spent most of the day on Friday (which was arguably the best weather day of the whole week) down in the basement rerouting an electrical circuit. While it's true that this circuit was in the way of the next wall we wanted to frame, and it had to be moved, it was extremely complicated, finicky, and above all, time-consuming. Meanwhile, I was outside, finishing off the hole on the west side, starting the hole in the driveway (yes in the driveway - more on that later), and taking the wire brush to the back wall in preparation for sealing. Amy didn't really want to be stuck downstairs, and I would rather have been framing (Have I ever mentioned how little I like digging? Really? That often? Huh. Well, never mind, then.) and we probably would have made more progress if we had been working together. As it was, we both made an impact on our respective tasks, but neither of us really felt like we had finished anything.

So, we decided on Saturday (or as I call it, Digurday) that we wanted to finish one of our projects. Given that the crappy weather had returned, leaving us with cloudy skies, a stiff breeze, and temperatures lower by about five degrees, we decided to tackle the remaining outside stuff. This required the following tasks:

• Widening the hole in the front yard to expose the connection between the house perimeter drain and the drain out to the city storm sewer.


• Cleaning off the rest of the back wall with the wire brush so we could apply the foundation sealer at some point this week.


• Digging down beside the house on the driveway side to expose the perimeter drain, much like we had done on the west side.

If you think that sounds like a lot of work, you'd be half-right. It's actually a full metric shit-ton of labour.

And we did it all.

Here's the hole in the front yard now:



Just a wee bit bigger, eh?

It's difficult to capture the cleanliness of the back wall (even with my awesomely spectacular camera - NOT), so I didn't try. Instead, here's a picture of the back wall before we cleaned it, showing the amount of crap that was on the wall and, as a bonus, one of Amy's nice little hydraulic cement patches in the footing:



And of course, the driveway hole. I actually started this bastard on Friday, figuring that once I got past the asphalt, it would be pretty much smooth sailing. After all, I had dug the hole on the west side, underneath the office window, without needing the pick at all. It was muddy as hell, thanks to the rain, but it wasn't especially rough going. And look, that hole is all done and ready for the drain cleaning guy:



That hole was peanuts compared to the sheer drudgery of the hole in the driveway, though. As it turned out, the asphalt was the easy part.

Here's how it looked when I quit for the day on Friday:



You can sort of see how it's going to be rough going, what with the rock wall right up against the downspout, and the hard edge of the asphalt at the side of the hole. But I don't think, even at that point, that I really had an idea of how tough the rest of it was going to be.

I now know with an awful certainty while they call it "hardpan". Because it's as hard as a fucking pan, that's why. They should call it you're-not-getting-through-this-without-ten-pounds-of-dynamite-pan.

Amy and I worked on this hole together for almost four hours. Every inch of dirt had to be laboriously chipped away using the pick, prybar, shovel, or crowbar. When we finally got close to the pipe, it got even worse because of the river rock embedded in the clay. I can't even begin to recount the swearing involved, seriously.

But if you were to walk up our driveway last night (at dusk, which is when I finally called it a day), you would see this:



If you were to get closer, and look down, you'd see this:



Without a doubt, THE most difficult hole I've ever had to dig. Bar none.

Speaking of which, it's time for another edition of...

The Injury Report

• Amy has this HUGE bruise on her shin, just above the ankle. We don't know what caused it exactly, but I'm making her wear jeans so people don't think I beat her up.


• When I was digging that bloody hole in the driveway, I over-estimated the length of the hole and bounced the pick off the rock wall of the garden. This caused the pick to turn in my hands and I smashed the back of my left hand into the edge of the asphalt. It really hurt. It hurt even more when I did the exact same thing with the next swing.


• I have a goose-egg on my left shin caused by the pick bouncing off the hardpan (also while digging the hole in the driveway) and the handle smashing into my shin. Thankfully, I only did that once.

Anyway, before I go and enjoy the last day of my vacation (we're taking the day off from renovations to do some housework, shopping, and lazing around), I should probably expand somewhat on the purchase I mentioned in the last post.

For those of you who weren't sure what it was or how it works, the item I bought is a laser level. Basically, you set it up, turn a little screw in the base of the unit, and it automatically levels itself, projecting a perfectly plumb/level line onto your work surface. The unit I bought will actually project a line on the floor, ceiling, and opposite wall at the same time, which makes it so invaluable when trying to frame a wall in our desperately unlevel basement.

A still picture doesn't really do it justice, but here's a shot of my new favorite tool in action. You'll just have to imagine the top of it spinning at about 8,000 rpm, and the tripod legs doing something that looks a lot like Riverdance while the laser lights strobe wildly around the room and Boney M's "Rasputin" plays at top volume:



Okay, it actually just kind of stands there quietly, but it's still pretty damn cool.





I think I need more coffee.