Concrete Ideas

Next stage concrete forming up.

That's done, with shower drain planted and third concrete stage ready.

Jim has formed up a sidewalk by the chicken house/garden shed, hoping they would bring out the truck instead of mixing concrete by the wheelbarrow load, but they didn't.

....And done.

No more ceiling in any place, (except the bedrooms and laundry room and furnace room.)

Before we started on the "replace the carpet in the living room" project upstairs that ended up being "replace the kitchen, dining room and living room floor with LVP and build a new fireplace" project, 

we planned to replace the basement ceiling. We wanted to for a long time since popcorn ceilings are out and we've had some water leaks over the years and it was stained. The climax came when Jim heard a dripping at 4 in the morning early in 2024, if my memory serves me correctly. It was coming from under the kitchen sink and filling the space between the floor and the ceiling. Jim pulled down part of the ceiling and we used to shop vac to clean up after the waterfall ceased. Now we had two holes in the ceiling. The first, at the end of this hallway, happened when we had internet cable put in. The company we changed to, wanted to just lay the cable on the ground, for now. Jim wasn't having any of that. He bored in a conduit to run the cable through, drilled the hole through the brick where HE wanted it, and pulled it through the walls to the opening he made and chose. It THEY do it, they just go any old way and don't made it nice. They had a bit of a fit, saying he wasn't one of their contractors, which was hogwash because Jim has put in plenty of their cables. So, it was done, the way Jim wanted it.  A couple of days later, a Spectrum truck pulled up (oops, so much for hiding, hee hee) and I asked them what they were up to, and they had come to finish the job, hooking up and whatever. !!! I said it was already done, up and going, nothing more to do. I sure made me wonder about their communication!

The duct work has been taken out.

We replaced the glass brick windows with new bricks because the other ones had "vents" in them. 

All these photos with the extra shiny lights are bothersome. I don't know how to make my camera make a change, perhaps it can't.

Next step is replacing the duct that is gone. 

 

I'm Floored

I've been busy lately keeping up with office work and too tired to want to sort photos and blog them. This week I started looking after Oliver and I have time before he wakes up to work on the computer. 

Jim uses this tarp to block off parts of his working area to limit dust spread. It's still pretty dusty around here. 

 This is the last piece of paneling.

This wall needs redone as well, insulation, you know.  

The next project is the floor in the east part of the family room so the rest of the tools

and construction stuff is moved.

 Tile removal. 

This vinyl tile is original and still in great shape. It's ugly. 

After the floor was done we taped paper over it and moved all the junk/stuff from the back part into the finished part, tarped it off and ready to start on the other half of the back room,

Building Walls

In this first photo after the paneling and wall studs are out, you can see at the top the duct work that will eventually be replaced with shorter ones that will be wider, essentially to give more head room in the bathroom. The basement has 7-foot ceilings, which were the norm in the 60s. 

Jim is replacing the studding so he can put insulation in the walls. There was none before and the studs were 2x4s placed the other way. 

Building the frame.

And up it goes. 

I wasn't helping. I was taking pictures.

And that half of the basement is framed, ready for the insulation and sheetrock. 

Concrete Evidence

As with any project, there is always more needing done that we expect. Jim is replacing everything with PVC pipe. These are drains from upstairs. Jim took out this piece of wall, not just to facilitate the replacement, but also because the sheetrock was rotted.

Replaced floor drain., ready for concrete.

He replaced the sheet rock with water resistant kind.

The sheetrock and tile are all out and Jim's starting on removing both closets to give more room for both the bathtub and shower.

My big storage closet, going, going, ...

gone.

Side view.

Jim moved the door over a few inches to the right for more room for the vanity. Shoring up the door space to replace the header. 

Finished.

Forms going down for first concrete pour. This side is for vanity and bathtub. 

Marking out shower dimensions.

In between concrete pours, Jim is working on the walls. 

The Grass is Greener

Since this whole bathroom project started because of clogged pipes that resulted in a new septic tank, the old one had to be removed.  I suppose it wouldn't HAD to come out, but in Jim's book, it did. 

Using the excavator either to get the rest, fill the hole, or both. 

Then, he could get the lawn leveled and planted. The second photo shows how much needs seeded in the back. The first hints that several feet on the other side of the sidewalk needs done. The previous pictures show the scope, also.

 

Plumbing Re-do

I'm slow getting photos on this blog because since I had cataract surgery. I'm making do with readers at the moment and since they don't have the prisms that control my double vision in them. It is very hard to work on the computer seeing double. 

This will just be a photo dump of Jim putting new sewer pipe into the bathroom. 

Looking through the furnace room into the bathroom, Jim is replacing this pipe before he walls everything up. 

Tamping dirt