Big Picture: Where are we?
Walls done! Concrete pad poured! Time to set the patio…
There’s a lot of work in flight right now, but it feels like we can start to see a finish line for at least some of it.
Corp Update
- The big news is undoubtedly that we poured the concrete parking pad earlier this week. It’s quite the thing to see.
I’m planning on making a video to explain all of the construction details, because it’s a lot more complex than just “scrape out some soil and pour concrete”.
The 8-man crew arrived at 6am on pour day to finish up a few details before the first truck arrived promptly at 7am. (Side note- the truck was a brand new unit, not a scratch on it. They cost over $1M. Driver was a woman, which is pretty unusual in this field). First load poured the west half off the pad (9 cu yds). The team spent the next several hours “finishing” the concrete, which is the process of smoothing the surface, cutting in expansion joints, smoothing again, edging, smoothing again, brushing, etc. The second load arrived at about 11am for the east side of the driveway. (6 cu yds). Same process to finish it, but now they couldn’t walk along either side of the new pour- the west side had fresh concrete, and the eastern edge was a large wall we’d built. Still, they managed to do their thing and the pad looks fabulous. Below is a ~90 second video that captures the day.
We can walk on it, but it’ll be a week before it’s safe to park a car on it. Meanwhile, here’s a Timelapse video of the process (link)
- Out front, we added soil behind the new retaining wall for the front yard. Kath has already started planting and she’s super-excited to finally have her hands back in the dirt again. The front of the house is very much in shade (north-facing) so the plat selection reflects that. The main feature is a Kusa Dogwood which should do well in “partial sun”. The team still needs to finish up the walkway from the new sidewalk to the house, but that should happen in the next 10 days.
- The deck project for our neighbor hasn’t made much progress. I did manage to weld up the brackets we will need. I also pointed the walls that will be behind the ledgers, and blocked up an old window opening into the basement. I’m not a particularly skilled mason, and I would not attempt this in an area that anyone would see regularly, but it’s sealed up and it will be adequate for the purpose we need.
Their handyman was supposed to waterproof the disused bilco doors to the basement. The first attempt had some water leaks. They brought him back out and I walked him through the best way to fix the issues. Unfortunately, the work isn’t up to my standards and I’m going to have to tear it out and redo it. It’s not just cosmetic- the flashing he put up would be in the way of the ledgers we need to install, and even a small rain demonstrated that it’s still not waterproof. It’s better to fix it now than to ignore the problem and let the water continue to damage the building.
- Macro level, the project is now in “wrapping up” phase. We didn’t hit my expectation (Walls were done by end of Feb, but we did not finish the rest by the end of March). There was a bit of scope creep (added the front yard work) but some was just conflicts with schedules, and some delay was due to the weather.
- My own estimates of the remaining work are as follows:
- Foundation prep: 2 days. (done)
- lay block: 5-7 days (done)
- Patio base prep: 2 days (this week)
- Patio stone setting: 3-5 days (start this week, finish next week)
- Re-install AC units (week of May 6)
- Weld up Corten steel planters (by May 30)
- Build neighbors’ deck (by May 30)
- It’ll be busy to get the deck fully built, but it’s doable, provided we don’t have any more surprises with their building.
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