The satisfaction of a job well done...

...and the taste of a good beer to go along with it:



But, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's been a very long weekend, and we've been very productive. So let's get to the REAL updates, shall we?

Oh, and this is probably as good a time as any to remind you that my camera SUCKS. I mean, I may have mentioned it before, and you've seen the evidence of that, but for some reason, it was particularly crappy today. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of some of the images in this post.

Okay, I apologize in advance for the poor quality of ALL of the images in this post. Hey, at least there's a lot of them.

As required by our miracle worker (i.e.: the plumber), the wall inside of which we intend to run the new water pipes for the laundry has been erected:



Of course, that's not even half of the wall that needs to go there eventually, but it's enough for him to get started tomorrow. And, much like every other wall I've framed, this one needed to be done twice. Because I suck. And because I always forget to double check BEFORE I drill the Tapcons. Stupid squareness. It's highly overrated, I say.

Anyway, that was actually the least of the jobs we undertook this weekend. Rather, we took advantage of the good weather (probably the last of it) to go hard on the outside and get the downspouts hooked up and ready for the winter rains.

The driveway hole was the easiest, as the downspout there is closest to the main sewer drain in the front yard. We have a little more confidence that it will drain properly and so it was a relatively simple matter to connect the downspout directly to the cleanout we installed:



Looks pretty spiffy, eh?

The back yard was a little more complicated because we're a little less certain about its ability to drain properly - and because it sees arguably the highest volume of water of any side of the house. The backyard slopes perceptibly in the direction of the house, and there's no diversion in place for the rainwater from the roof.

Our solution was to design a dual-downspout system; one for summer, and one for winter. The summer one will connect directly to the perimeter drain (like the one in the driveway), but the winter set-up will need to divert the rainwater from the roof away from the foundation. Here's the winter system in place and ready for the impending deluge(s):



Note the cap over the branch of the drain where the downspout would normally go. In the spring, we'll take that off and attach a piece of pipe leading right from the downspout and into that side of the drain. Just to help with perspective, and to give you an idea of how far that extends, here's another shot from the side:



Oh, and of course, we couldn't have really done any of this had the War Department not been working hard all week to get the holes filled in and graded properly. Evidence of this can be seen in the remarkable diminishment of the enormous pile of crap in the backyard:



I'm somewhat amazed that as much of that went back into the holes as it did.

The last downspout was the one beside the window on the west side, and we approached that with much the same strategy as the downspout in the backyard. It also happens to be the side of the house with the least amount of drainage, so we needed to make sure the water from the roof drained out as far from the foundation (and the blocked perimeter drain) as possible. Here it is, all set up and raring to go for the winter:




Okay, I admit, that looks absolutely ridiculous, but you know what? I think it's going to work.

So, yeah. We've got the outside almost finished. We just have to lay down some sand and asphalt in the driveway to cover up that patch of dirt, do a little more grading and filling in the backyard, and get rid of the rest of the (not-so) enormous (anymore) pile of crap.

Oh, and in the midst of all that work, we still managed to replace the railroad ties in the front yard - and even mow the lawn!



Almost looks normal again, doesn't it? And no, we're not planning on filling in that gap around the cleanouts before spring. Amy wants to redo the front bed anyway, and there's no sense in digging it all up now (thankfully).

Oh, and thanks to a friend's determination to save his house from a quartet of leaning Douglas firs, we managed to top up our wood pile for the winter:



(And that's not all of it...) Thanks Cesar!

Anyway, I'm off to enjoy what little remains of the weekend... what? Time for bed?

Bloody hell.