Mail order surprise

Please visit our Donation Page

After all the work, the lost sleep, the missed birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays we finally had a chance to relax just a little bit. We had some thing left to do, but we could easily do it before October 1st. Me and the boys moved the water heater and pressure tank. The girls moved beds into the basement. We finished insulating the basement and started sheet rocking the guest room, that would now be our living room. We had a working bathroom with a flushing toilet. That was probably the best thing ever!.

The house wrap was on, the windows were all in, it wasn't all that cold yet in mid October but we knew it would eventually turn colder. 

Once it did turn off colder we spent most of our time working inside finishing up the basement.

Our first bit of drywall in the house.

Michelle finally got to paint something. We had waited for this day for 6 months!

Outside it was starting to get un-seasonably cold. Record temperatures they expected. We thought this would be a good test for our house wrap and insulation testing. I got a couple of thermometers to monitor the temperature in a few locations inside and out.

It got down to 2 degrees on Michelle's Birthday. We skipped hers like we skipped mine, but someday we will have a place to have a birthday party!

 We turned the heat off in the house to see how long it took for the temperature to drop. After 6 hours we had lost about 5 degrees. Not too bad for as cold as it was outside.

The kids and I were pretty excited about testing the weather resistance of the house. Between us and that -6 outside was a layer of drywall, a layer of r-30 insulation, closed cell spray foam, 1/2" of sheathing, and a layer of house wrap. It seemed to be doing it's job, so we duplicated it in the upstairs (which was currently closed off from the basement). Christmas came and went just like Thanksgiving. All of our food came out of a microwave, so there wasn't much for a dinner on either holiday. Someday though, we plan to have dinners again. In April we started to emerge from the basement, like hibernating animals. We had made a few attempts to work upstairs but with the lumber frozen, we couldn't drive nails in it. 

Since we started everything in the southwest corner we thought it fitting to start sheet rocking that room first. It would be Samantha's bedroom. It took a couple months to save up the money for it, but we got the materials and went to work. When we ran out of material for dry walling we went to work on wiring, or plumbing, or anything else we had materials for.

Sometime during the month of April we received a letter from a co-worker (Steve). My wife set it on the shelf and told me about it when I got home.I opened it, not expecting anything in particular and low and behold it was a check from donations him and his wife collected! I told the girls about it since we could now finish up their room walls!

Thanks again Steve! This came at a perfect time. We needed a boost after the winter! I haven't been that excited to get mail since then.

Super Dave

Please visit our Donation Page

We carried on through the month of August. We fixed any mistakes we found, and kept on working through the heat, and the rain. A friend of ours came over (Dave) who I can say without his help and equipment we wouldn't have gotten the house done in time, or maybe not at all. He usually came over with 2 of his boys (Wyatt and Keith). They helped set the last few walls on the third floor install stiff backs in the ceilings, the barge rafters, and start one of the gable ends.

Through the week the kids and I got the rest of the ceiling joists and ceiling rafters in, bridged the walls in the living room and master bed room, get our beams and bracing finished, and just generally finish up some loose ends we needed to get done so we could get the roof on. We were finally ready to start the rafters. Dave helped me get an idea of the pitch we needed and we setup the framing square for rafters. I cut one, and set it in place. It fit exactly like it was supposed to.

Keith worked on top, and I worked on the bottom

On august 30th we started the roof. Those first few rafters were a great feeling. We would soon have a weather proof structure. I had a bunch of work to do with the saw but we could now frame the rest of the house up. The rafters were two sections. A lower section and an upper section. The lower section set on a rafter plate (not the wall) at the outer wall, and the upper end of that rafter set on a rafter plate at the interior wall.The second section set on the interior rafter plate, and the upper end attached to a ridge beam.

I cut so many rafters. Between the ceiling rafters and the roof rafters there were about 300 to cut.  I set most of the lower halves with the help of a guy from work (Tom), and Derek. The next day (Monday) I took off work, and set upper rafters on the west side going east. By the time the kids were home from school, I was half way across. Surprisingly the kids never came out of the shop to help me. I did a few at a time through the week. By Saturday we were at the east end, and had the rafters done. We spent the day Saturday putting in the rafters for the dormer. We added the gable studs, and Bracing to the main roof. By the next Friday we were ready to put the sheathing on the roof.

House was ready.

Dave would be over the next morning with his oldest boy Dan, along with Keith and probably Wyatt. I did not know that several other guys would show up with them. When they showed up, I started cutting osb, and that didn't stop for a long time. Not only were all of them fast, they were all really good at what they did. I didn't get to watch much because I was busy, but in maybe 2 hours, possibly 3, they were done!

Samantha, Brad, Keith, Joe, Link, Randy, and a few others I didn't know.

This was much different than the last time people came to help. Things got done, they were done right, and we didn't have any issues. well except my compressor went out about 30 minutes into it. Then Dan's compressor went out. They hand nailed some of it just to attach it. We went  back later and nailed it good. 

All that was left now was to close up the gable ends, house wrap it, and install all the windows and doors. We would have the roof on, and the exterior ready for winter before October 1st! We could have not made it this far without Dave and his family. We would have made it there eventually, but it would have taken another month probably. 

Free isn't always good.

Please visit our Donation Page

Birthdays came in July, but we didnt ahve money for birthdays, time for birthdays, or even a place to set a cake. Our 21st wedding anniversary was only a few days later and we had to skip that too. Progress had slowed some because of the weather. It jsut would not stop raining.
I remember framing when I was younger. Bad weather was something I looked forward too. It meant either you got the day off, or we would at least work slow.With rain (and even a late snow in May) I hated the weather. I wanted sunny and 70 every day of the month. Like it or not, we had to work in the rain if we were going to get done before the goal of October first.

As long as there was no lightening, we worked no matter what the weather

We tried everything to keep the floor dry, but without a roof it wasn't happening. 

The rain seemed to let up mostly in the evening and over night. The shop would flood when it rained, so there wasn't any place to get a break from the water. Might as well be out working in the middle of the night. There were so many nights (weekday or weekend) that we pulled all nighters on the floor. It wasn't as hot, the rain would let up, and we had lights all over the floor on 20' 2x4's. Going to work and school the next morning sucked but we did it!

We swept the water off the floor and down into the basement. we ruined so many chalk lines using them on a wet floor.

Start of the cathedral ceiling in the dining room. 

At this stage we have the outer walls up, the inner walls up on the second floor, we need to sheet the outside walls with sheathing, set all the ceiling joists, build the 3rd/loft floor and get the roof on. We were running out of steam, and the ceiling joists were slowing us down some. We needed some help, but there wasn't any. A friend of my wife's (Jasmine) had talked about having some volunteers come out and give a hand. We scheduled a Saturday (August 10th) and I would ensure I had all the material I needed on hand and some written instructions for groups to follow. Michelle had cut all the floor joists for the dormer on the 3rd floor, and the master bedroom. We laid out everything in 'kits' everything a group needed was there. I had several cases of nails, and we were set to go. My biggest job for that day was putting the sheathing on the walls. When the morning of August 10th rolled around we were ready. These were supposed to be experienced framers I was told, so they could work without much assistance. What exactly their experience was, I did not know.

After a brief thanks to everyone, safety speech, and a hand out of safety glasses I was ready to get to work. I fielded a ton of questions that day. They weren't as experienced as I had thought they were. I heard a lot of complaints about the design of the house. Fortunately for them and me, no one knew who was there to help and who's house it was. When someone complained to me about the layout of the house I just said, 'ok'. They had mistaken me for someone volunteering, not knowing it was my house and my kids that built it.. Brad bailed on laying sub floor because no one would listen to a 13 year old. Parts of it turned out okay, parts of it had some severe structural problems.  Brad and I spent 4 days cutting away nails, relaying sub-floor and rebuilding walls.

You can see the 2 new walls added that day in the upper left. We took them down because there was only one nail in the studs and they would spin around inside the wall.

To everyone that put in a good effort and really tried (even if you didn't know what you were doing) we thank you, and the help was much appreciated. Free isn't always a good thing, no matter what form it takes.

Mark 16, Hold 3/4, lay ahead?

Please visit our Donation Page

Since we just hand't had enough bad luck the pump went out on the well, on the hottest day of the year. It was only a two year old pump, but for some reason it just wouldn't function. I called the pump installer (Shorty Hampton) and he said it was a wiring issue. I checked everything carefully and could not find a wiring problem so we called him again. turns out when he replaced our pump 2 years before, he used our money to buy a new pump, but installed a used pump which had now failed. He insisted our pump must have been hit by lightening and that's why it stopped. My son watched him remove the old pump, which he said was covered in black tape and severely rusted. Red Jacket pumps last forever, and for that matter Red Jacket said they warranty pumps even in a lightening strike. Shorty Hampton just ripped us off plain and simple.

Back to the house! Hard at work on the second weekend framing the upper floor, we stood up walls and the kids were getting more and more eager to work on it. They were extremely motivated by this time.

West wall and north wall

East wall in front. north on the left, south on the right.

The kids seemed to be getting the hang of all of this wood framing. Smaantha seemed especially keen to wall layouts even with windows and doors. I no longer had to tell her how to layout a wall. I only had to tell her how long the wall would be, and at what position in the wall a window or door would go. On Sunday I let them go on their own for a while.

Savannah built all the headers for the entire second and 3rd floors in one day. She did a wonderful job. 

For some background if you don't know, laying out a wall is not incredibly difficult, but you have to put some thought into it and pay attention. Each stud is one and a half inches wide, and we want the center of that stud at sixteen inches. In order to lay that out, the layout person has to run their tape from one end of the plate (for us always the south for a north/south wall or west for an east/west wall) to the other. Each sixteen inch mark must be held back three quarters of an inch (half the stud thickness) so that when the trailing edge (because we lay ahead of the mark) of the stud is set on that mark, the center of the stud ends at sixteen inches. When you encounter a location for a window, you have to layout the 'jack' studs with are the studs that go under the headers. For any wall opening larger than a multiple thirty six inches, there should be doubles jacks at each end of the header. The full studs on the ends of the header are the 'king' studs. The short studs above and below the opening are the 'cripple' studs. Once the walls studs are laid out, we go back and locate the window or door and put a cross out X on the original all stud if it was in the way. I left all this up to a 10 year old girl who could do it as good and sometimes better than an adult.

Headers carry a load across a wall opening. Without the header your wall top plates would sag down and eventually your house will start falling apart. If your headers are not squared up, and nailed together properly, they will open up and your walls will sag. If the header edges are not flush your cripple studs will not fit correctly. If a framing member might twist, the nail row should run at an angle. if it wont, you can nail it vertically. Nails should go in at and angle. If cripple studs are not place above the header, the load on the top of the wall is not transferred to the header, and you get sagging again. If the header or beam isn't thick enough for your nails, the points will protrude. When this happens you bend the ends of the nail over which makes it impossible to pull out. That's what you call a 'dead' nail as in 'dead as a door nail' because they used to always bend nails over that were in a door so they couldn't come out. Lastly, even though you put nails in with a nail gun, you HAVE to close the header up by driving the nails in with a hammer. A nail gun does very little to close up the gap between the two framing members.

It was incredibly hot that day. I had created a make shift shade area in what would later be the dining room. I cut wall plates, and gave them to Samantha. For each plate she would ask "Mark 16 hold back 3/4 and lay ahead?" I would always respond with 'Yes.'. As the day went on, and our sunburns got worse, the kids did a terrific job staying busy and building some fantastic walls. The girls framed up their own bedrooms (with closets) and brad framed his room (with his closet). The only thing I had to do was cut wall plates and occasionally help stand up a wall. (some of the walls were 20 feet long).

This was our 4th full day of framing, and it was coming together quickly.

Afternoon, 3 bedrooms framed

Around midnight 4 bedrooms, and the bathroom

Faith in the plan

Please visit our Donation Page

Taking a look back on those beginning steps, it seems like such a long time ago. In reality it's only been two and a half years. (it's presently summer of 2015 as I write this) Brad graduated middle school the day after we poured the first footings. School was out before we started the wood framing. It seemed like such a long road to travel, but it's really not been that far. Mostly working on the weekends, and after work during the week we have actually came a long way.

Sometimes I wonder if others who face a challenge in life, face it the same way. Do we all kick ourselves in the ass and get moving again? Do some lay down and let whatever comes there way run them over? Are we really that much different? Am I that much different? First hand experience tells me that only a person with an iron will is going to make it through something like this and do what we did. But there must be others. I can't be the only one, we can't be the only ones.

So back to the current problem in June of 2013. We had a house to build, we had a time budget and a monetary budget. We had to meet both, or it was going to be a bitterly cold winter in the shop. I decided that to inspire the family I would say nothing. There's nothing you can say to someone that just cannot see what the end result will be. Most of the time they can't see the end anyway. To those, this would be an obstacle that you have difficulty overcoming. I told everyone to have faith in the plan and it would all come together. I would inspire them to work through action. I would be the first one up, the first one out, the last in, and the last one to bed.

On June 18th the lumber arrived that would become the second floor.

I gave the kids a crash course in framing. We decided that all dimensions would pull from the south and west sides of the house. We started the rim joist all around the house and set the sixteen inch centers. I let the kids do some of it themselves. Brad was obviously the heavy lifter, but he also had an eye for some engineering. Samantha seemed to be really good at keeping the technical details in her head. Savannah understood the overall plan. Together they had everything they needed. That first day was not incredibly productive since we only had the evening to work. The kids agreed to work on their own the next day while I was at work.

This is the upper foundation with the beams in place on their peers. Some of the sil plate is down on the north side.

Slow start on day one. Only a few floor joists were in place and crowned.

Lumber is obviously cut from trees. Trees have a natural direction they grow. When you cut lumber from them the lumber has an arch in it on it's narrow edge. That's called a crown and in order to have a nice flat floor we needed all the crowns to point up when installed. The nailer should not have to stop and check each board. It is up to the layer to set the board on the framing with the crown in a particular direction. In our case, we decided all crowns went to the south. That way the nailer could grab the board and rotate it so the southern edge was facing up, and nail it in place. Theres more to it than just grabbing a board and throwing it on the rim joist. Everyone's job was important, and everyone had to be thinking when they were working. The kids had gotten this down pretty good, and when I came home after work, this is what awaited me.

Brad being the best at heavy lifting was a layer and he crowned the joists. When they had a row ready to go we went to town with the nail guns.

Now you might be thinking, kids? nail guns? saws? dangerous? and the answer is, yes, it can be dangerous. They need some supervision to start. They also need some training on the tools. Which is why none of them are nailed in yet. You also might be thinking, nailing boards together is brainless. I would say, not so! Each floor joist must have (according to the IRC) a minimum number of nails. That number should be the dimension -1 2x4's get 3 nails in their ends, 2x6's get 5, etc. But you also must cross nail each framing member. It's easy to pull a nail straight out, but it;s hard to pull one that is bent. Pulling a nail straight out that was put in at an angle is just as hard as pulling out a bent nail. These are things my kids learned and now know how to do. If we did this over again, they would be as good as professionals.

By the evening, this is what we had:

We were almost half way across on that first day. Once the joists were down Savannah took over on gluing the flooring, Samantha nailed (at an angle of course) and I threw sheets up on the floor. We would rotate out once in a while so each one knew the others job, and everyone got a bit of a break. By the end of that first weekend we had laid most of the sub-floor with the help of my brother in law and Derek's friend Chris. Monday would come and that would be the end of most of my working on the floor until the next weekend. There were some beams that needed to go in over the basement to span the sixteen foot hole over what would become the stairs. That's something the kids really couldn't do at the time. 

While we stood back that Sunday evening to see what we had accomplished, the kids were excited. They were happy for the first time in 4 months. 

Not bad for an old guy

Please visit our Donation Page

After the concrete was down we had to have a few days to recover. The concrete needed a few days to cure hard enough we wouldn't harm it walking on it and standing walls anyway. Wood framing was the part of this rebuild that I knew well, and I knew it was going to be moderately complicated, and A LOT of manual labor. I spoke with a friend of mine who I worked with years ago framing. He had some good advice on building, and some new methods that we didn't use often when we framed back in the 90's. He loaned some nail guns and other tools for us to use. With everything ready to go, I put together the material list, and an approximate timeline.

I gave some thought on how to rally everyone again to start the long haul. Everyone seemed excited to start the wood framing, but this wasn't going to be like the concrete. we suffered through torturous weather, nasty work conditions, and labored until we could barely stand on the concrete, but once it was poured we were done. The wood framing would have it's own challenges and it wouldn't take so much intense labor because we worked at our own pace. With winter only 5 months out though, we couldn't just take our sweet time. This structure had to be weather tight by October 1st. What could I possibly say that would get everyone motivated, and keep them motivated until we had the structure closed? These are still kids ranging from 9 to 13, getting them motivated for even a simple task is hard. Derek was working nights, so his physical labor wasn't often available, but he contributed monetarily. Michelle worked nights in the ER so she couldn't help physically either.

On June 7th 2013 I stopped after work and loaded all the lumber needed to build the basement. I was supposed to be met there by Michelle and the kids but before they showed up I had loaded all of the lumber onto carts. They were there to help load the trailer, but this was off to a bad start already. For the hour drive home I thought more about what I could say that would get everyone excited but I was coming up with nothing. I got home and ran extension cords for night work. The kids had built a table and saw horses to stack lumber on the day before so it was actually kind of nice not to have to bend over to do everything. We laid down some of the sil plates and called it a night. The next day we were all up by the time the sun started to rise. Troy showed up about 7:00 and we were hard at it. The kids had never done this before so there was some learning, and some slow starts on portions but all in all it was a good day. By the end of Saturday most of the basement framing was up. On Sunday my nephew Stephen came by to lend a hand. By the end of the day, we had completed the stick framing of the basement. All that was left was to put the sheathing on. The second floor would start as soon as the lumber showed up. If we were going to keep the time line and get in before winter, we had to be framing the roof in August. That was just a little more than a month away.

Below is a photo I took on the way to work Monday morning. We had a long way to go, but we made some really good progress in just a weekend. Not too bad for an old guy and 3 kids.

Its more like a fortress actually

Please visit our Donation Page

With the walls set, and the forms being stripped away, it was now time to finish this big piers at the end of the upper footings. Attachments had to be made into the existing wall with steel re bar but the footings actually had re bar protruding already. I set out to give Brad instructions on attaching that while I laid drains that would be under the basement.

By the time he finished up both piers most of the drain was in, and gravel put down. The drainpipe should be a filtering pipe, so that dirt and gravel chunks don't plug them up. Filtered pipe is very expensive, so I used leech lines wrapped with landscape fabric.

The short wall forms on the upper side were already set after a long week of late nights. The floor was formed and ready to pour. The piers were ready, all we needed now was one clear Saturday and we would be done with our concrete work. At 7am on May 27th the last 23 yards of concrete was delivered and the pour started. Michelle's uncle (Rick) came down to help with the floor. Hes been doing flat-work for years and he did an excellent job on the floor. It's one of the flattest and smoothest floors I have seen. I was in charge of the short walls on the upper foundation, Brad was in charge of the connecting piers. As the floor went down the walls came up. My truck emptied about half way around my walls. The floor truck emptied about halfway across the floor. The last truck was to deliver the rest of my concrete and the floor concrete. We had timed it almost perfectly so that my wall truck emptied at about the same time the last floor truck came. This was great because I didn't want a  cold joint in my walls. With the last it of concrete in the truck I filled and leveled the piers that would hold the upper floor. 

Now it looked like a house was starting. All we needed was the concrete to cure for a few days before we started framing. We rested for a couple of days, but rest in the shop is pretty hard to come by. It was hot, over 100 in the shop and the floor had standing water in it. The humidity was overwhelming, and since we didn't have a washing machine or drier we couldn't change our clothes through the day. We had to live with sweaty clothes until it was time for bed. 

We all were in amazement at what we had accomplished. We would go out and walk up and down the walls. It seemed almost un real, just a month ago we couldn't walk anywhere near the area without being covered in mud. Now there were these giant sidewalks! We did this, with little or no help. One partial paralyzed guy and 4 kids did this. It was pretty amazing. Our favorite place to walk (because it was so wide) were those piers that connected the basement to the upper foundation. 

At it's widest point this section of wall is 20 inches thick for 4 feet, tapering to a width of 8 inches on the basement side and tapering to 12 inches thick on the upper foundation which runs 36 feet. This wasn't just a typical foundation it was more of a fortress really.

I need to sleep for a week

Please visit our Donation Page

Footings were down but we needed a basement which meant we needed concrete walls. That means concrete forms. I called a few places and found the forms, but I couldn't take off work so I would have to go get them the next day on my lunch break. Each concrete form weighs 120 pounds, there are 150 flat panels, and 4 corners for a total weight of 13,950 pounds. How in the world do I get those to the build site? Had to split the load up into two trips. Take half after work drive an hour home, unload, drive an hour back, pick the other half up, drive home and unload. The problem with that is, I would lose 4 hours in just drive time and the concrete would be there in less than 24 hours. I would have to stay up all night setting the forms, and then pour that morning. How in the world would we do that? Remember the last blog ended with hope and inspiration. That's how. The drive to get it done, to get my family something to live in.

On Friday (5/17) I drove my truck and trailer to the rental yard and picked up half the forms drove home, unloaded, drove back, loaded again, and drove home. I called a long time friend of mine (Troy) and he came down to help. He got to the site about 10 that evening. Brad and Derek helped me and we had about half the forms up. But we had skipped a form in the corner by mistake and we didn't have time to change it we just worked around it. By 3am Brad was out of gas and went to the shop for some sleep. At about 4am Derek ran out of gas. By 6am Troy and I had finished setting the remaining forms. We had 2 corners to put in, but I had to tie the re bar in the walls first. By 7am that was finished and we had the other panels in. At 8am we had braced the walls and straightened the forms. We were now ready for concrete, or so we thought. We went in to take a nap for as long as we could. At 9am the trucks (yes more than one, 16 yards of concrete total) showed up. The first truck started its pour at 9:30 on the north corner. We began to hear some popping on the forms. Nothing big but it made me un-easy. I noticed a lot of water coming out between two forms just before the north corner. We had left the key locks out of the bottom, and it would eventually blow out those forms. I jumped in the trench and pushed the forms back in with my legs, but couldn't reach the key locks. Derek jumped in behind me, and got a key started but not fully locked. It was holding for now though, and there's nothing you can do when there is 8 tons of concrete standing straight up in a wall and gravity wants to tear it all down. One of the drivers was an experienced wall form guy and he said to just wait, pour slow give it 10 minutes to setup some, and pour again. We followed his advice and eventually the forms started to fill. One form however started to bust open. We all stopped and waited. Every few seconds I would hear a weld break. Any minute now I expected a gush of concrete out of the forms, and all my foundation money would be up in smoke, not to mention I have to dig the forms out on only 1 hour of sleep.

We walked around to what would be the inside of the basement, and checked the forms. The older driver asked if we had any wailers. I said 'I have no idea. What the hell is a wailer?' He described one, I said yeah we have 10 or 12 of them. We grabbed up these wailers and placed them on the forms, then drove 2x4's inside them to brace the walls. It worked and we started pouring again.

The one form on the south side though, just wouldn't stop popping. We slowed the pour down again on the south side, and braced the form more, just in case. Finally at about 2pm both trucks were empty. I had a new found respect for liquids that stand up and we had our basement walls up! Unfortunately there was no end in sight for work. I had sat on the top of the walls shoveling concrete for over an hour. Brad was on the other end doing the same. We were both worn out, and just because it can happen, the well had quit and we had no water. Savannah had been trying to get some water from the faucet in the shop but it just wouldn't work. Finally she came out with one glass of water, and to this day it's probably the best glass of water I have ever had.

I had gotten a pretty good chemical burn from the concrete on the backs of my legs, and desperately needed to wash it off, but without water, there wasn't much I could do. I finally got the shower to work and rinsed off. I told brad to do the same. I had to go back and top off the walls and install the J bolts to bolt the house too. I crawled across the forms with a hand float smoothing the top of the wall. I worked pretty slowly and it was plenty painful with no knee pads. I managed to get concrete embedded in my knees and an even worse chemical burn on my shins, but when that was done, We all took a much needed nap.

Chemical burns from concrete. This lasted almost 4 weeks after they were burned. And yes if you look close it's all green a full of puss and concrete. Good times.

As much as I didn't want to, we had to take the next week off. Working 8 hours a day and another 5-6 hours after work was starting to take it's toll on me. After those walls were up I felt like I could sleep for weeks.

Hope is only a vehicle for inspiration

Please visit our Donation Page

With the lower footing forms set and ready to pour concrete we concentrated on the upper half of the footing. I contacted a friend who is a geologist when we worked on the basement footings. His input was again pretty valuable on the upper footings. Knowing the settlement rate for the basement (where a house once stood) would be less than the upper half (which never had a house on it) we needed a slightly wider footing to compensate the upper half. We added a couple of inches to the width and set those forms accordingly. What to do with the separated footings though. I would have to table that problem for now, because the weather was going to turn bad again. I wanted to get the concrete all down before the rains came. First order of business was setting the upper footings on the compacted ground. Remember that tree I said was particularly stubborn trying to push out? Well it wasn't quite done with us yet. It had began to sink in a little where the stump was, so we added more fill and packed it down again. This would be a spot in the foundation I would pay particular attention too from now on. A good friend (Biff) had loaned me a DeWalt laser level for teh upper footings. It made the work much faster. We used it to check the lower footings we set with a hand level, and it confirmed that we had in fact built a perfectly level form. Brad and I spent Saturday and Sunday finishing the upper forms.

By the end of the weekend we were almost ready. Now back to that pier issue I put off. I had two separated footings that we had to connect together some way, but I wasn't sure how. I did a mountain of research on structural engineering, concrete strength, re-bar placement, pier building, and anything else that I could get my hands on.  I finally settled on a method used to build bridges. I would set a pier at the ends of the basement walls, and attach the new upper footing to that pier. The re-bar should hold the concrete in suspension like a bridge. I made a quick drawing and sent it to the kids at the shop with some basic instructions on how to build the piers.

This is the sketch I sent with the instructions:

This is what they built:

We could now pour concrete and when the basement walls came up, they would tie directly to these two massive piers. Michelle had been talking to the concrete plant and had arranged for concrete to arrive at 9 on Saturday morning. Rain was coming so we couldn't wait for another weekend. We had to do it now. Regardless of how tired and soar we were we had to get these in. By 2:00 that afternoon we had the foundation for what would someday (hopefully soon) be our new home.

Footing as poured on 5/14/13:

The last thing we had to pour that day was the pads that the floor beams would set on under the new section. Those went pretty fast and with the kids new found excitement at what they say as our first tangible step towards a new home, I was more than happy to let them. Even though I knew the concrete piers would cover up most of what the did. Regardless they are still setting under the house, and will be there for as long as it stands.

So we had finally something to look at. Something we could walk on without wallowing in mud. The kids and Michelle finally had something to point to that was a measurable marker of accomplishment. They had hope now, real tangible hope which is what we all needed. Hope by its self doesn't get you anything, it's only a vehicle to inspire the heart and mind. That inspiration creates the drive that you have to have in a desperate situation that causes real action and real results. If you have hope, you are halfway there.