I awoke at 4:30 am this morning to the sound of thunder and flashes of lightning. It persisted until about 5:30 am. At daybreak, it was apparent we had received a significant deluge in that short period of time. There was quite a bit of water standing in the trenches. The concrete guys ("Concrete" Mike and sidekick Josh) showed up at 7:00 am this morning and began removing the footing frames. The concrete was still very "green" due to the cool damp weather. "Concrete" Mike, in his customary doom-and-gloom manner, said there was no possibility of installation of the foundation wall frames today. He continued to say that his schedule to spend today and tomorrow building the wall frames and pouring concrete on Thursday was completely, absolutely, positively ruined. While I was at something of a loss on how to console him in his misery, I mentioned that the weather forecast, at least for the moment, was for clear skies the rest of today and tomorrow before the next wave of thunderstorms roll in late Wednesday and continue into Thursday. I'm not sure that really helped to relieve his anguish, but, with the potential that this work might otherwise extend into next week, he and Josh set about installing the wall forms. Soon, three others arrived to assist.
By noon, they had the garage wall forms complete and where attacking the sunroom with reckless abandon. The bay, or turret, portion of the sunroom was a challenge, as "Concrete" Mike said it would be.
After lunch, the rebar was placed in the garage forms and, before they quit for the day, about two-thirds of the sunroom frames were put up.
Also at 7:00 am this morning, "Pipefitter" Greg showed up with some mighty fine fish stories (but no fish). His team won a nice cash prize, but not nice enough to prevent him from coming back to work today. Mark had predicted he would be here Wednesday to finish the plumbing in the basement. I told him that T had decided to keep the old tub. He was relieved he was not going to have to try to haul it out of the basement. Greg was finished and gone by noon. We now have a functioning toilet and new laundry sink in the basement! Greg told me that "Jackhammer" John would be the one to haul away the old kitchen sink and other debris at some unspecified time in the future.
Here is the drawing that Bob (landscaping) sent yesterday with the latest revisions. We are approaching the landscaping in phases to take into account seasonality as well as costs. The first phase will include installation of hard surfaces, sod, some lighting, irrigation, the water feature, fencing, major trees and plantings for screening and soil stabilization. Subsequent phases will include the "other" plantings (ornamental shrubs, flowers, grasses) and will probably be done in the spring next year. Again, the timing of all of the plantings will be driven by the weather and the bank account balance. The drawing below is the same as the one shown on October 1, but includes the Phase I plantings and shows the extended walkway in front of the house. Communicating with T (still in Houston), we concluded this was a good starting point. I so informed Bob and he will stop by Thursday morning with a contract to sign and to pick up the down payment.
Sidebar: "Concrete" Mike mentioned to me this morning that our Mike (general contractor) had told him that we were planning to use an "Old Monroe" exposed aggregate for our walkways and patio area. He said he talked with two materials suppliers (one of which was the one the Bob had suggested) and both supposedly caution Mike that there were issues with consistency between batches of this specific aggregate. Mike said they suggested a couple of alternatives (Illinois Glacial and Iowa Glacial). I passed this information on to Bob who seemed dubious of this problem if the material is properly specified. Just something else to bear in mind.
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