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Sunday, May 29, 2011

windows are in! I'm just about dead!

might be a bad sign, I've stopped stinking.

got a cramp-fest in the left hand, and had to go off the job twice with a right arm so pained up and crampy it was totally useless, but we got the egress windows in.  they're larger than the windows in the rest of the house.  Shawn had to cut 3 courses of block... twice... but they're in and weatherproofed.  don't have the trim on and siliconed outside, but they ought to withstand some weather for a couple days.

Memorial Day is thus a well-earned rest day, no heavy lifting.  tonight is rated severe risk of meso T-storms, more likely tomorrow starting in the afternoon.  we got a couple drips on our shoulders a couple times today, but the Lord was with us, and we got the egress windows in.

woo!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

curses! rained out again!

going to be too wet to put in the egress windows this weekend... maybe Sunday, but likely not.  raining right now.

so we're picking paint colors, having decided on the carpet, and then efforts to reinforce the basement staircase (overcut by the  builders, needs some 2x6 on the stringers), put up a pole surround wall, put up more can lights, and get wiring done.

east side towards the driveway should be waterproofed nicely.  lot of cavity under the concrete, and the wall up to ground level was 12-inch block.  the wall above ground level was 8-inch block.  so right under the walkways, there are big block openings up to 3-1/2 inches.  basically everything from the driveway to the grass ends up draining into the basement.

or did.  filled the cavities with spray foam, filled the expansion joint cracks with self-levelling polyurethane caulk (like about 40 tubes of it,) and after all the mortar cap over the block mess was removed and those cavities filled, sealed with quick-set sand mix and sealed with poly caulk over the top.

lot of escapees from the millipede and sowbug colonies that invariably form in wet, organic, peaty areas, and a lot of trapped ickbugs.  that should take care of infiltrations of bugs into the basement, too.

Monday, May 9, 2011

there's a reason I can't raise my right hand to scratch my ear tonight

at this point, we've gutted half the basement, only to find another wonderful infiltration of water that needs to be fixed.  requires breaking a mortar cap over block, sealing it, recapping with the right spec-mix concrete, using flexible urethane caulk/seal to fill the walkway/foundation gaps.

dug out one window well at about 5x4x3 feet deep.  tore out the upper deck steps, tore out 1/4 of the lower deck, which now allows digging out the second upgrade to a legal egress window.  just finished building the new upper deck steps away from the hole's work zone.  probably about a ton of wet green-treated lumber hauled and cut and placed.

still need to reframe the basement walls in the east half after Drylok, insulate, rewire, put in the conduits for the media stuff, etc.  I've taken the week off for that.

this is a 40-year job, I'm only doing it once per house ;)

Friday, May 6, 2011

I need a break

think I'm going to have a drink or two.  I hear the SEALs have whipped up a winner.  they call it Geronimo.

made with two shots and a splash.

totally whipped.

half the basement is gutted.  some of the lights and wiring are in.  we should get enough good weather to dig in the window wells, thanks Shawn.

unfortunately, have NOT gotten all of the deck-in-the-way removed yet... and we have to get up at 6 saturday to get a rental truck and haul a roll of carpet, 60-odd bags of debris, and 6 old doors and some random crap to clean-up day at the city garage.

no rest for the wicked.  it might have been a poor idea to get back to exercise today after two weeks, even though I didn't pound it.  but the arm-length bruising has been fading enough (from that vicious handrail attack) to deem it necessary to see if I'm bilateral without pain.  so far, so good.

next week: vacation from work, but not de basement.

Monday, May 2, 2011

more de basement

we have gotten into a springlike weather pattern,,, rain and blowy on the weekends, and rain every several days.  so we haven't reconfigured the deck.

but we have the east half of the basement gutted, and the first row of can lights is installed.  rot under the stairs has been cut away, we have two boxes worth of garbage bags full of foam and wallboard ready for clean-up day Saturday.  going to have to rent a truck.  probably have a couple more to get out.  believe we really did caulk up all the serious leaks 3 years ago, but going to take another run at a gutter elbow I just don't trust with some magic mastic in tape form.  cuts for the treads in the stair stringers are pretty wide and sloppy, we're going to have to sister some new 2x6 onto them.  and there is no full header, mega code and safety violation.  need some 2x8 to properly address that.

we're cutting back the side wall  along the stairs about to the second step, and will roll the light switches around that.  the basement is cut in half by a drop for HVAC and plumbing, so there will be a fan on either side.

next week is the killer week to pound on it... expand the window cuts, replace the windows, put up the walls, insulate, fire up the wiring.  well, not really fire it up, but ya know what I mean.  still need to scare up a TVSS outlet... no sense having cords all over the bookcase wall when we can just put in 6 or 7 duplex outlets, all fed with a TVSS surge suppressed outlet.

it's all very de basing.

I am reliably informed some foreign hippie got shot up.

that'll teach the bearded wierdo!