It's All About the Big Pour

Firstly, let me apologize for the inadequately proofed first post. I prepared it late Sunday evening when I should have already been in bed. In an attempt to avoid similar cock-ups, I'll keep this post short.

We finished work mid-afternoon Friday due to the inclement weather, but early Saturday Ruth & I headed to the cottage to do some maintenance and yard work. Sunday, I vegged for a couple of hours, helped Claire move a couple of trailer-loads of furniture to her new apartment, napped, did house-cleaning, started this blog. All in all, a busy schedule for a guy moving into the last six months of his sixtieth year.

Secondly, as I wrote it, I was aware of how much I was leaving out as I wrote the first post, but the omissions became really glaring with today's reread. I hesitate to suggest that this blog might become a "how to contract your own home build," but I think Ruth and I have gleaned some interesting perspectives and insights on how to make this kind of project doable. Bold words, given that only Styrofoam is sticking out of the ground at Ruth's Ridge.

Over the ensuing posts, I'll see if I can fill in some of the detail that other prospective DIY builders might benefit from and, more particularly, that brought us up short or proved helpful or rewarding.

This project has given Ruth & I an unbelievable opportunity to grow in our appreciation of our differences and our complementary skill-sets. It has concurrently forced us to become more patient and understanding, to delegate and trust the other's judgement, to collaborate even when one or the other just wants to take the ball and run.

And as critical as the financial and personal development aspects of this project are, it is imperative to me that every interaction demonstrate that relationship has primacy in every facet of the project – as it should in life. We want every interaction throughout this project to reflect our view that interpersonal relationships are more valuable and rewarding than any other measure of success. So far, very good.

Today, August 3rd, I arrived on-site at 8 a.m. in a downpour. This has been one &*^%^#%^@ of a year for any outdoor activity in Manitoba... mostly cold, windy, wet, miserable. The outer perimeter of the excavation had two inches more water than ever before, and the basement area was under seven inches of water. By the time Davis & Delaeno arrived from Morden around 8:30, both pumps were at full output, with the gas-powered trash pump belching 158 gallons/minute out of the excavation site. Happily, we had only a couple of brief showers for the rest of the day, with sunny moments contributed by a visit from Jim & Johanna, followed later by Ed James.

By 6:15, we have completed virtually all of the work on the basement wall construction: all ICFs were in place, all steel inserted, most reinforcing completed, the scaffolding secured. Davis completed most of the work on the Sonotubes (for the piers) except given that they are made of paper and rainfall is utterly unpredictable, they can't be placed until just before concrete pouring.

We're expecting Deryl Brook to inspect the rebar first thing tomorrow. We'll have a relatively unstressful day completing the reinforcement of the ICFs prior to doing a four-hour concrete pour on Wednesday morning. Of course, we'll get lots of pictures of Davis dancing with Snuffleupagus for our Wednesday night post.

Tomorrow, some detailed photos of the ICFs awaiting concrete for all the styro-nerds in the audience. It's 21:38. Davis has already been in bed for awhile. It's past my bedtime, too. "'Night, Gracey."