Normally weekends fly by for us. Normally weekends are just way to short. Until the weekend you are waiting to start your house. Then the weekend is 9 trillion minutes long! And you feel every 9 trillion seconds of it! That’s normal though right?
Finally, FINALLY, Monday morning came. We were expecting the plumbing guy to show up for the plumbing inspection and to finish stubbing in the water lines to the house before the concrete slab was poured. Nope. The plumbing guy didn’t show up. But the inspector did. And so did the concrete guy. The plumbing inspection passed and he passed the footers while he was out there as well. Wow! Two inspections passed at a time!!
Our contractor Scott, called (from vacation!) just after the inspector left and they all talked and decided to plumb in the water lines themselves. Scott said the concrete guy had done it before and the concrete guy was more than happy to do it so he could get on with pouring the concrete. He sent his son to town for the parts and started on the prep work.
Maleah and Camden had speech therapy that morning so I didn’t make it out there to see what all went into the prep work.
So, I have no ideas what is under that plastic. I’m told it’s just the pile of gravel. Let’s hope so. You know how men can be when left unsupervised….
This is what it looked like when we got out there.
They were putting in the finishing touches and waiting for the concrete trucks.
It was about to get real!
The kids and I were really excited to watch the concrete being poured! Although, Camden doesn’t look very excited, does he??
Anyway, the kids and I got our stuff all situated. We had folding chairs, hammocks, bathing suits, towels, lunch, snacks, bug spray, water, more water, and oh yeah, more water. (It was supposed to be HOT!) It had been so hot the week before and over the weekend but that day was quite a bit cooler. And the cloud cover kept the temperature down until well into the afternoon. We were so thankful it wasn’t quite as blazing hot as the week before.
We had no sooner sat down to eat our lunch than the first concrete truck pulled up. Be still my heart!
Behold! The concrete trucks!! Be still my heart! My pounding heart!!
When these guys get to work, they really get to work! Within 5 minutes, they had the footers all poured and they were working on the floor.
The footers were done in less than 5 minutes!
I think I would’ve missed something had I blinked! Thankfully, I didn’t blink much. And I had the camera taking a million pictures a minute.
Maylin wanted a front row seat to see all the action! I love her enthusiasm for everything!
The first concrete truck ran out of concrete and the second truck was already there waiting. They poured the rest of the concrete and ran out just as they got to the last corner. They were short about 2 yards of concrete.
So, while they waited for the next truck to arrive they raked,
rolled,
and repositioned the center divider in the concrete.
All of us were rivoted! The next truck came and all the concrete got poured. Then Clay got out this machine that looked like a floor buffer-but so much cooler.
He started throwing down water and buffing the floor. It was already dry enough to do that! I guess there is something to be said for pouring concrete on really hot day after all!
Then they started driving rods around the edges. I can’t really explain what those are yet, but I’m hoping to find out very soon!!
Around 3pm Camden was getting grumpy. The poor little guy had taken a nap in the hammock and kept getting woken up by the different trucks and pieces of equipment. So I decided that I would take him on home. Clay and his son were just going around smoothing the edges so I thought they were almost done for the day. Apparently not.
I called Jim almost 2 hours later wondering where they were. Oh, well, they were helping take down the form around the slab. What??? Oh, and they had already written there names on the porch. Wait, what??? I had missed all that? Yep. I missed it and they didn’t take any pictures. Bummer.
Clay was loading up his equipment and heading out. He planned to return later that evening with a blower and finish up. Then he was going to seal the concrete and he would be all done. I missed all of that!!!!! ALL of that!! On the bright side, he was all done and we had a foundation for our house!!
I did go out there the next morning to take pictures of the finished slab foundation! It’s beautiful!!
Oh my, that picture of Maylin is so typical! Love that girl!
The kids were so happy…until they realized they couldn’t drive their bikes on it for 3 days!!
That was torture!!
And now we just have to wait 3 days to build on it. Well, we know how long 3 days is, right? Well, Scott won’t be back from vacation for 7 more days so actually we have to wait for 7 days. Oh dear, oh dear. I will spare you from more of my calculator skills here, but I will tell you that 7 days is a long time!!!
I will leave you with the images of what Jim and the girls did the afternoon after I left with Camden. I had mentioned that it would be neat to have the date written in the concrete. Well, this is what Jim and the girls came up with…
Maleah’s name.
Maylin’s name.
Cam’s name.
I will spare you the pictures of mine and Jim’s name. Let’s just say that when you walk up the porch, you will have no doubts as to whose house you are at!! Our names on the front porch are larger than most of the house!!
