We seem to be running out of holes....

There seem to be fewer and fewer holes in the basement these days. Because we keep putting things in them or covering them up with other things. And no, not just random things we find lying around. Things that are supposed to go there. Things that we bought or built for that specific purpose.

It's actually somewhat freaky, to tell you the truth. Things are ... getting finished. Like, actually done-finished, not just finished-until-we-finish-this-other-part-we-needed-to-finish-first-and-then-we-can-do-more-work-on-it.

Yeah.

First off, we do have a small cause for celebration: we passed the final plumbing inspection! Woo! Couldn't have done it without Leonard, of course. The guy's an absolute gem.

With that all wrapped up, however, it was time to turn some serious attention to the trim and other bits of finishing that must be done before we can pass the final, FINAL inspection, the dreaded (and deservedly maligned) Final Occupancy Inspection(tm).

Not that the inspector is likely to care how much attention to detail we apply when filling nail holes and sanding the edges of things, but that's more for our benefit anyway.

Oh, and something I think I forgot last post: we installed one more of the doors in the basement, the one between the office and the laundry room:





We had to put that in as a barrier to keep the cats out of the office while we were sanding, prepping, priming, sanding, painting, caulking, and painting the window wells. They're still crooked, but at least they're white, shiny, and crooked:





Oh, and did I mention, done?

Anyway, the big project this past week was the built-in bookcase. (You can see the hole it's supposed to go into in the second of the two pictures of the door up there- the big hole to the right, with all the crap sitting in it.)

I, of course, had never built a built-in book case before, but I know someone who has. And he just happened to be in town this week! Amazing coincidence, that, eh?

So poor Top Brass Pa had to spend his Saturday on vacation helping me manoeuver a jinormous sheet of 3/4-inch good-one-side plywood around on top of the table saw out in the driveway. He was very gracious about it, however, and I must admit that I probably couldn't have done it without him. That's not to say that he actually did any of the work, mind you - I made every measurement, cut, and tool mark on the bookcase myself - but his advice was invaluable, and he was always on hand to catch the pieces of lumber as they came off the other end of the table saw. (I actually only made one wrong cut - and we had enough spare wood from the sheet that it didn't matter at all. For me, that's pretty damn good!)

What we did was to take some measurements of the hole and design the shelf layout on paper. We then built a box, complete with back, that could be lifted right into position on the two-by-four supports I had built into the wall when I framed it. Overall, it worked like a freaking charm.

So here's my wee beauty after we sledge-hammered it into position (it was a shade tight on the bottom. Just a little):



And just in case you thought it was a simple matter of nailing some boards together, think again:



All of the shelves are dado cuts - and yes, that took a lot longer to do it that way. Nearly the whole day, in fact.

Here it is with the trim around it and the edge pieces glued and nailed into the shelf faces (the tape is just to hold the trim until the glue sets - it's not staying, no matter how well you think it matched the colour scheme):



And yes, the nails in the trim are some of the holes we've spent the rest of the weekend filling.

Among the other holes-that-aren't-holes-anymore, are the two heating vents and the cold air return:







And that's about it for this update. I'm hoping to do the final sanding on the trim for the door and bookcase tomorrow, followed by a coat of primer on the bookcase. Then it's paint, paint, paint. Oh, and caulking of course. And then some painting.

But damn me to hell if it isn't starting to look like a real room!



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This will not become a habit.

And by the title, I mean this two days, two posts thing. Don't get used to it. It's like Christmas; if it happened every day, it wouldn't be so special, would it?

The reason I'm posting tonight is that there was a remarkable amount of progress in the basement today, and I was responsible for absolutely none of it. I was busy earning money to pay the guy who DID the work. Our plumber, Leonard. (I figured it was about time I used his name and stopped referring to him as "the plumber" all the time. It's a little impersonal, I think, and hey - he's spent enough time here, he's earned it. Heck, with the money we've given him, he could BUY that kind of treatment... Special offer folks! Contribute to the basement fund and get your name on the Internet!

Heh. I kid.

Sort of.)

Anyway, the short story is: the plumbing is finished. Yay! But you didn't come here for the short story, right? I know, I know. Shut up and post the pictures, Don. Sigh. No one appreciates true art any more.

But pictures? We got pictures...

First up, the wall I so lovingly constructed on Saturday is now all full of holes. But it's okay, they were put there by a professional (i.e., not me):



That's the new plumbing for the washer and the laundry sink, all installed, clean, secure, and actually - as of this writing - working just fine. Which is kind of why we didn't do this part ourselves...

Moving on, you may notice something missing from this shot:




That's right, the hot water tank! (Those of you who were too busy wondering how much you could get on the street for that used copper piping are going to be disappointed to hear it's only worth about $1.50 a pound. Sorry. But really, this isn't about you and your black market ambitions.)

Leonard moved the tank to its new home near the furnace and, in doing so, brought it up to code with all kinds of earthquake bands and proper drains and other things to make inspectors happy. (And make us shake our heads in wonderment - seriously, it's a $99 Canadian Tire special. That's a lot of trouble to go through for a cheapass hot water tank.)



So, tomorrow night, it's framing time! Well, and probably some clean up. That copper pipe ain't going to remove itself, you know. Unless we leave it in the driveway or something, and then the deadbeats who come by to pick through our recycling would consider it fair game.
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A little step back, a huge step forward

As it turned out, the plumber didn't need to remove TOO much material from around the shower drain, but it did take him the greater part of the day to install the shower pan.

I think he did a pretty nice job:



Despite appearances, that is not just a randomly placed bag of kitty litter. Oh no. That's a very precisely-positioned, high tech stability assurance enhancement. I shit you not.

Around the side, you can kinda see the hole underneath where the plumber removed the concrete (I tried to get a closer shot but, as I may have already mentioned, my camera sucks):



Oh, and full props to the War Department, who helped with mixing the mortar so the pan would have a nice bed of support on which to sit.

Anyway, we have our work cut out for us this weekend as we have to get the wall between the "storage" area (my office) and the laundry room framed in by Monday, at which point the plumber's coming back to move the hot water tank and replace most of the remaining copper pipe.

I love working to deadline! Read more...

Not the sort of thing I really wanted to hear

The War Department is working from home today because our plumber was coming back to move the hot water tank and install the shower pan. We were a little concerned about this visit because the drain for the shower seemed to be a little close to the studs of the bathroom wall; it needs to be 12" on center, and it looked to my (admittedly unpracticed) eye to be closer to about 11". Maybe even 10 and 3/4"...

However, the guy who originally recommended the plumber to us assured us that we needn't worry, that "he's a miracle worker" and would make it right.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I received the following email message from Amy at five after nine this morning:

"I do so love the sound of jackhammers in the morning..."

Yeah. He's busting up the concrete we so carefully poured four weeks ago. Apparently, we were supposed to leave a gap all the way around the pipe for the shower drain, but I either wasn't listening or he forgot to tell us. (Yes, I know; I'm assuming it was my fault, too.)

I'm at work so I can't post picture of the progress, but I should be able to get some interesting shots tonight. Stay tuned.
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Oh, the pain

You know, I could make this entire post about the bits of me that hurt right now, but it would take up a lot of screen space. Here's a short list: hands, feet, legs, arms, wrists, and back. Oh, jebus, my aching back...

But you didn't come to read another edition of the injury report (I also have a couple of nasty scrapes from where I unloaded the concrete mixer by myself because I'm an idiot), so on with the concrete show!

We started the day by realizing that we were late picking up the mixer, so I rushed off to get it while the War Department lazed about in bed with the cats. (Hey, I write the blog, so you get my version of events! I don't care that she was up and organizing the basement by the time I got back, I like my story better.) While Amy prepped the basement and got the hoses out, I set up the mixer in the side yard by the window:



If you're very quiet, you might be lucky enough to catch a very rare sighting of the War Department in her natural habitat...



Once everything was ready, we mixed up one bag of concrete with a whole bottle of the bonding agent into a thin slurry. (Am I the only one who loves that word? slurry... Seriously, that's a good word.) Then Amy painted the mixture onto all of the rough edges of the concrete while I farted about taking pictures and getting in the way. (That's what she's doing in the shot above.) We let the bonding agent dry a little bit, and then started mixing and pouring concrete. It was pretty much just a straight slog from that point, but here are some of the highlights:

• In the beginning, I brought 21 of the original 32 bags of concrete from the garage to the side yard, partly because I wasn't sure I'd need all 32 bags, partly because it was sort of overcast and I didn't want to move all those bags back into the garage if it started raining, and mostly because after 5 trips with the wheelbarrow, my arms were going to fall off.


• I started by mixing two bags at a time, emptying the concrete into buckets which I then passed through the window to Amy, who dumped them into the holes. She would start smoothing out and leveling the concrete while I mixed up the next batch. After a while, I kinda got the hang of it, and moved up to mixing three bags at a time.


• About halfway through the second hole, the big one on the workshop side of the bathroom wall, we realized that we weren't going to have enough concrete. Amy figured we'd need at least four more bags, and sent me off to Rona to get six more. When I got there, I figured I might as well play it safe and bought eight. We wound up using all of them, with not even a bucketful left over.


• We finished up about quarter-to-five, but by the time I had rinsed out the mixer and got it loaded in the back of the truck (ouch! again!), it was five-to. Amy called the rental place (we had to have the mixer back by 5:00 or pay for an extra day), but even though she said I was on my way and would be there in 10 minutes, the guy told her bluntly that they were closing in five minutes and hung up. Nice. So the mixer cost us $60+ instead of $30+, but you know what? It was worth every penny.


• Amy did all of the smoothing, troweling, and grading. I just ran the mixer, rinsed the concrete off the tools on a semi-regular basis, and did most of the heavy lifting.

All in all, it was a hell of a lot of work for one day. But we finished! We now have a basement floor - with no cat tracks! Imagine!

Here are a series of shots showing our work. The first of each pair shows the concrete after pouring, the second after letting it cure overnight (still not quite ready to walk on):










Look! No more hole to the outside!



Okay, so that's probably more pictures of concrete than you really wanted to see, but we're pretty proud of the job we did.

So on Sunday, we cleaned up most of the dirt and mud on the rest of the floor and tidied up the work bench. Amy patched most of the holes in the slab (and the giant hole left by the old water service in the side of the house) with hydraulic cement while I fixed the plumbing under the kitchen sink. Yes, I fixed the plumbing. (Yes, I left a bowl under the drain just in case I didn't fix it right and we haven't run the dishwasher yet, which will REALLY test it, but I'm pretty sure it's good.)

All in all, it was arguably the most work we've managed in a weekend so far. 40 fricking bags of concrete. Oh, my aching back.

Yes, we both took our Vitamin I and plenty of Vitamin Beer. Probably shouldn't have ground one up and dissolved it in the other, but what are ya gonna do? Read more...

It's concrete day!

All right, enough of the simpering about keys and kitty litter. It's picture time!

A warning to users on dial-up: ha ha!

First up, the plumbing inspection. Our poor beleaguered plumber booked the inspector for 2:45 on Thursday afternoon, and came over a little early to get everything set up. When the inspector arrived, and they filled up the system with water to test the seals, they found a leak in one of the connections between the crappy old cast iron pipe and the new PVC. The inspector, bless his cold, cold heart, said he had another job to inspect, but would come back in an hour or so to give the plumber a chance to fix things up.

Well, the plumber scurried around the basement for the better part of an hour, getting absolutely soaked and covered in mud (the contents of the pipes were under pressure for the test, and when he attempted to let the pressure off... well, let's just say it didn't release as smoothly as he planned). Fortunately, he was considerate enough to do the mud and water spraying outside, so the basement didn't get trashed again.

When the inspector came back, they went to conduct the test again, and the bladder they were using to plug one end of the drain wouldn't work. I don't know what was wrong with it (I was getting the play-by-play third hand as I was at work), but it wouldn't inflate properly to close off the drain. So he's running around trying to get it to work (getting more soaked in the process) and the inspector is RIGHT THERE... ah, it must have been a glorious scene.

Eventually, however, they managed to plug the drain, fill the system, and check for leaks. All good - we passed the rough plumbing inspection! W00ts! Of course, we also had to pay the piper - er, plumber - for all his hard work. The War Department handed over a cheque that was five bucks south of $4000. Um, ouch. Still, the guy worked his butt off, and we're pretty sure he STILL cut us a bit of a deal as far as the number of hours he actually put in.

At any rate, with the plumbing inspection completed, we have the green light to start covering up those damn holes in the floor. Which means... concrete!

We picked up 20 bags on Thursday night and stashed them in the garage for safekeeping. After work on Friday, I picked up a half-a-yard of washed sand. We used the sand to cushion and embed the pipes, and then covered them up with some of the better quality dirt and the rest of the sand. Did I mention that all of the sand and dirt had to be passed in through the window in buckets?

Here's the result:




(Ha ha, cats can't get out the hole!)

After we were finished that, I went back to Rona and picked up another 12 bags of concrete. Of course, my back and arms started to stiffen up on the drive, so loading 12 bags really, really hurt. When all was done:



That is 32 bags of Sakrete Concrete Mix, and we're hoping it will be enough. We had to get it in two trips, because we didn't want to find out that the truck couldn't handle 1760 pounds of crap while coming back on the highway at 90kph. Oh, and by the way: picking up and putting down 32 bags of concrete means more than two "Vitamin I". I'm just saying.

All in all, it was a hell of a lot of work for a Friday night. It's worth it though: no more enormous piles of dirt in the basement:



The plan for today: pick up the concrete mixer (what? you think we're mixing 32 bags of concrete in a wheelbarrow? HA!) at 10, clean and prep the holes, and start laying concrete. Oh, joy. If I don't post pictures tonight, I'm probably stuck in the foundation.

Fortunately, Amy's done a fair amount of concrete work in her time, so once again, she'll be in charge while I do all the heavy lifting.

One last picture before I go get started:



Ah, my favorite hole. Want to know the best part? We can't fill it in yet! We have to make it BIGGER!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

Sorry about that. Anyway, we need to dig down some more on the right side there to expose the drain tile - that's where it connects to the pipe that runs through the front yard and out to the city storm drain. We have to expose it so we can install a clean out. Joy.

I'm going to need more coffee today. I can feel it already. Read more...

All right, already!

Geez, I had no idea people were actually reading this. And what's more, they get antsy if I don't update!

Weekend developments:

• We had the initial plumbing inspection on Friday. I say initial because the inspector decided to be an ass and told our plumber that he would have to redo the venting for the shower and hot water tank drains. Final (hopefully) inspection should be sometime tomorrow, and then we can start filling in the enormous holes in our basement.


• Speaking of our plumber, he had some trouble trying to connect to the badly corroded sanitary sewer drain and had to excavate yet another massive trench in the basement floor:
  
  
  
  
  That's looking along the sewer line, under the wall of the foundation, through the footing, and into that enormous hole in the front yard which, yes, STILL wasn't big enough. You can see that we now have a ladder in the hole so we can actually get in and out of it. (Quickly. If a wasp comes.) The good news is that it's all nice, new, sturdy, properly-sealed plastic pipe now, so we don't have to worry about the cast iron corroding under the foundation anymore. Well, not as much, anyway.


• The inspector said the new water service was fine, so we went and picked up a half a yard of sand, shoveled it carefully into the bottom of the trench to cushion the pipe, and then filled in the trench with some of the crappy soil from the huge pile of crappy soil in the back yard. This is the result:
  
  
  
  Notice how we carefully let the grass assume the same color brown as the clay so that the trench wouldn't be as noticeable? Wasn't that clever? (Okay, maybe it's because my camera is so shitty that it can only display 256 colors, but still.)
  
  I can't even begin to express how excited I was to be doing something that went towards repairing part of the house rather than tearing yet another hole in it. Stupid holes. Stupid, stupid holes


• The kitchen sink/garbage disposal is leaking. Upstairs. Sigh. The War Department is going to give fixing that ourselves a try. The plumber is already warning us about the "shock value" in his upcoming bill...

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Enough with the holes

Well, there's more to the story of the hole, but I'm sure you've all had enough pictures of excavated clay to leave you with a serious depression. No need to furrow your brows, I just don't want this blog to fall into a rut or become too much of a niche thing. So at the risk of causing a rift between readers who like the apertures, and readers who prefer a little less orifice with their reading, we'll move on. (You should know better than to leave me an opening, Dad...)

Speaking of perforations (yok yok yok), we had a bit of a mishap with one of the existing pipes. Back when the plumber was jack-hammering the concrete and pounding away at the foundation, the drain from the kitchen sink/garbage disposal starting leaking. Of course, said drain connects to the main drain, into which the toilet empties. I guess what I'm getting at is that we had rather stinky water dripping into a bucket by the laundry sink for almost a week until the plumber could get around to repairing it.

Yesterday was the day, and after he had finished enlarging that bloody hole in the front yet again (no, I'm not posting a picture of it; you can wait until the clean out has been installed) he started taking apart the drain so he could fix it.

Well, as he put it to us later, the War Department and I "need to start using the garburator properly". Turns out the whole pipe was full (and I mean, FULL - we have no idea how the water even drained out of the sink at all, it was that plugged) of old, stinky vegetable matter. The end result of this was that our plumber found himself attempting to hold up one end of a pipe that weighed about twenty pounds more than he had expected while attempting to cut through the other end.

The balancing act ended badly.

After he'd cleaned up the water and crud that had burst over the basement, he cut off the top of the main stack, cut through the old cast iron pipe of the toilet drain (have I mentioned how happy we are to not have been at home for any of this?), and replaced it all with shiny new plastic drain pipe. I have no good "before" picture, but the aftermath looks like this, with pretty much everything between the two silver bands new material:



I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the guy does nice work.

On looking over the past few posts, I have noticed one rather serious omission. It occurs to me that perhaps the best way to convey just how much digging we've done would not be to show you pictures of holes, but to show you how much dirt we've had to move:



It hurts just looking at it. Read more...

The hole, the hole, it haunts me so...

I would have posted this update earlier, but I couldn't make my arms work. Stupid digging.

So, the plumber came and looked at our hole. He was not impressed, and so we dug some more. Then we sprayed the hole with water to soften the clay.

Note to self: water does not soak into clay.

Anyway, this is what we see now (click to enlarge):



And because the pictures still don't really do it justice, here's me standing in the hole:




On the plus side, the plumber ran the new 3/4" water service in from the street, and has all kinds of new water pipes installed in the soon-to-be-bathroom. If we can get the hole done tonight, he reckons he should be able to call for the inspector by the end of the week.

Ah, what the hell, one more picture. Here's where the new water service enters the house:



A couple of things to note about that picture: first, the War Department did all of the digging for that herself; second, that picture shows how close to the surface our previous water service entered the house, and is a pretty clear indication of why one of our "winterization" procedures was to heap a big mound of soil over that part of the flower bed. Oh, and note the size difference between the pipes. We can already feel the difference in the water pressure. Read more...

Monster in the Depths

I was tabbed to stay home and watch our plumber work yesterday (gee, what terrible hardship), and managed to sneak in some "work in progress" shots.

Here's the workshop-side hole for the drains when he left for 20 minutes to go get some more parts:



And here's the same hole when he broke for lunch:



Kinda looks like some freaky, plastic spider-monster climbing out of our basement floor, doesn't it?

Here, I've made an attempt to be helpful and labeled the parts for you:



You'll have to click the image to get the full effect. Go on, click it. CLICK IT!

Yeah, the guy works hard. He also plumbed in the shower drain and vent, but I didn't want to blow ALL my pictures on one post.

He also had a suggestion for how we can fill in the gap under our foundation, and get a little extra strength in the bargain. If we get a nice, thin concrete mix, roughly the consistency of self-leveling grout, we can inject it under the slab and use a vibrating tool to make sure it penetrates to the corners and gives us an even fill. It would also save us the trouble of doing our own concrete work - something we both suck at - when we cover up the drains again. We liked the idea so much (who wouldn't, what with vibrating AND penetrating in one go?), the War Department will be pricing out concrete companies next week.

Oh, and seeing as how I was home and the concrete repair place actually called back (for the first time in recorded history) and had an opening, they came by and patched the crack in the back wall. It occurs to me that I've never posted a picture of said exterior crack, so I'll be submitting you to yet another before-and-after style presentation:

Before:


After:


Now THAT, that's progress. We've been needing to do that for far too long. Of course, the guy showed up at about quarter to 11, and was done and gone by 12:30, but it's the kind of job that would have taken us all day. Much better to just pay the (ouch) $265 and get it done right.

So, this weekend brings more digging (joy!) in the front yard so the plumber can put in a new clean-out for the sewer line. We can also repair, or at least fill, the crack on the inside of the wall, and who knows? We might even get around to doing some more framing... Read more...