Thanksgiving and Reno Week 6 Concrete

Warning ... lots and lots of reno pics as a lot take place this week. :)

Thanksgiving, a time to remember what we are thankful for. Ray and I are thankful for our friends and families, especially this year, thinking about all the great times with Ray's Mum and my Dad who are not with us for the first time. We are thankful our children are doing well in life. We are thankful for the travelling we have been able to do in the motorhome and especially all of the fantastic people we've met who are now friends for life. We are thankful for being able to buy this house as a family legacy. So, on rainy stress filled days of renovations over the next few months, I will come back to this and remember that we are so very fortunate.

Our beautiful maple tree in our yard show's us that Fall is here.

Saturday we woke up to a little fog on the lake. As soon as the sun was up it all dissipated and turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. Ray and I took a trip into Duncan, to the Farmer's Market and then slipped over to Cowichan Bay for an early lunch at the french crepe restaurant called The Vine. I had to pick up my pottery order from Mud Works Pottery ... I ordered a gravy boat to match my set. Ray noticed this lovely old tug style boat that we had not seen before while visiting Cow Bay.

Back home by 1 pm it was time to sit on the dock in the sunshine for an hour or so. It was not warm enough for shorts and sandals but we will take it. :) Just love this view. Ray's back has been really sore (more than usual) for the past two weeks, hopefully not because of the damp weather that we are stuck in this year.

We had our company come Thursday night for an early "turkey day" so we won't be having company on the actual holiday. Kristi is on call all weekend, Jason is in Saskatchewan for a friends wedding and Garrett and Kat are in Kamloops with her parents. I will just make us a nice dinner for two.

Sunday we woke up to the sound of rain pattering on the roof, just as forecast. It was definitely an inside day, other than Ray taking Freya out for a couple of short walks. I spent the day playing in my kitchen and doing laundry.  Needless to say, Ray ate well.

Monday drizzly out again. After enforced rest at home yesterday, Ray's back seems a little better today finally. At least his legs did not give out so far today like yesterday, where one walk, they gave out 4 times later in the afternoon.  Poor guy. Hopefully with another quiet day he will continue to improve.

Tuesday a bit foggy out but the weather report for the next 7 to 10 days is sunshine. Hopefully the concrete will be poured tomorrow as scheduled and the deck completed this week with the torch-on. This should be a good "window" to get a lot of the outside projects done before the weather sets in again.

Our two-man crew, Bernie and Chris arrived at 8am this morning with painted trim boards for the deck that matches the house. The Coulson Design Group is making sure that everything will look fabulous.

The guys spent all day finishing the deck up, and doing the final prep for the concrete tomorrow. They managed to get done and leave by 2:30 pm. The plywood will be installed tomorrow so all ready for torch-on which hopefully should happen Thursday or Friday.

Ray tried a little fly-fishing this morning for a few minutes off the dock as he saw some fish rising. No luck but I had seen a loon fishing out front earlier. lol

Once the fog burned off it turned out to be a spectacular day. Ray thought summer had come back. lol

Wednesday I woke up early, very excited about concrete. lol  Received a call last night the 2 new pilings are going in today as well. Things are a happening. Quite cloudy this morning but supposed to clear up.

A bear was sighted in our next door neighbours yard a few days ago. It was after the fruit on their tree. Pat, my neighbour took these next two pictures.

Going into the yard.

Leaving the yard.

Ray took Freya for her walk this morning and noticed fresh scratch marks in the gate going to the park. I guess the gate was not latched a few days ago and the bear got out that way, but not today.

Our crew, Chris, Bernie and Roger arrived at 7:30 am and helped with marking out the driveway for Chris, the crew boss for Coastal Concrete.

The rest of his concrete crew (4 of them from Coastal Concrete, 2 for the pumper truck and 1 guy driving the cement truck) arrived by 8 am and by 8:30 am concrete was being poured. Yeah. Good thing our neighbours were not home as the concrete crew with their trucks took up the whole cul-de-sac!

Pumper Truck waiting for the Concrete Truck

First load of concrete.

Here comes the concrete.

Cement truck #2

Adding the finishing for brushed concrete.

Unfortunately we are "trapped" in the house for the day as they also poured a small step out the basement door and no steps on the patio. Ray managed to get a walk in for Freya at 9:15 before the ramp to the second driveway was poured.  Now we are stuck in the house. The concrete driveway in the front cannot be walked on for 24 hours, only lightly the next day and no vehicles for 7 days. We managed to climb out the new framed window and I boosted Freya out until they could ramp over to the basement door at the end of their work day.

Back door bottom step.

Our escape route out of the house today. 

And Voila ... a finished driveway. They started pouring at 8 am and were all finished at 1 pm. The concrete pour itself only took a couple of hours but the finishing takes way longer.  We have more respect now for Jim and Barb and their crew and the amount of work they did recently pouring for their house and barn.

The pile driver arrived around 10:00 am. They placed 2 new piles for us and one for our neighbour.

Old fashioned way of checking the depth so they plant the right length pole.

They trim the end of the pole making a point to stab it into the bottom of the lake.

Raising log up into the tower.

Positioning pile

And the hammering begins.

All done with it's little rubber hat.

Picking out the "right" pole.

Setting up for pole #2

Trimming the pole and putting on it's hat.

This process took much longer than I thought ... it took from 10 am to 2:30 pm to get our two poles in. Then they added a pole for our neighbour.

And they are off!

Our crew began laying the T & G 3/4" plywood on the deck. Lots of gluing and nailing. More progress.

By the end of the day they were mostly done. Chris told me that there were only 2 pieces of plywood that did not have to be cut or trimmed so it took longer to lay the plywood and they were short a couple of pieces due to all the cuts. They left at 2:30 pm.

What a day!!! I was running around watching everything happening for hours. I finally have a deck to sit on ... watching the neighbours piling going in. Love having the deck back.

Enjoying a G & T lol

I took Freya for her final walk and snapped a picture of the "sea of poles" from the park beach. Ray was having a really bad "back day" so he spent the majority of the afternoon laying down.

Thursday, was clear and 5C. By 7:15 the fog rolled in over the lake. We only had one person show up today to finish up the deck and prepare for the torch on roofing tomorrow. I left around 9:30 to head to Duncan to do some errands and pick up tile samples so Ray and I could make a decision on what was going to cover the torch-on. We had previously picked out stuff at David Coulson's but were told recently that it was not available now .... turns out they had not ordered anything yet. Another problem .... needless to say Ray is a little miffed to put it mildly. So I stopped at Slegg Lumber today to pick up the tile samples in person so we can get it right.

While I was gone, all the door trim inside and out was prepped for the door removal tomorrow as the torch-on will also go up the wall under the doors to prevent any water egress in the future.

Starting to feel like we are in the build stage again instead of the finishing stage. lol

Deck is ready including scuppers for the torch-on tomorrow.

When I got home, Ray and I spent a little time on our dock in the sunshine. Love that dock!

Friday morning, clear and cold and 5C at 7 am. Another forecasted day of sunshine. So beautiful with the fall colours. Good thing as all three patio doors will be pulled and we will be exposed to the outside for awhile today. Chris and Bernie arrived at 7:30 am to start clearing out the junk under the sundeck in preparation for the concrete pour down there in the next week or so. They will dig the drains for the scuppers from the sundeck to connect them to the perimeter drains. We could have just had "rain chains" off the deck but we did not water running onto the concrete downstairs, especially with the hot tub there. So ... more digging that probably should have happened much earlier when the other drains were put in but no one from Coulson asked us that question!

More pipe needed ... not enough brought this morning again!!!!

Look familiar... previously dug up 4 weeks ago!

Donna, Coulson's designer, stopped by this morning to help us pick the deck tiles we will be getting and help me with a few other design decisions going forward. We have been hoping for a meet up for a month but nada until Ray had a bit of a dust up with owner David Coulson yesterday. We now have a meeting scheduled with David and Donna here on Tuesday morning to see his plans for closets, basement etc. I can source a lot of things on my own if I know measurements etc. Ray and I are pretty good at picking co-ordinating fixtures ourselves without paying David's commission on top. :) We need a lot of clarification so things move along not waiting for material at $$$ an hour. Ray and I are planning on re-using as many things in the house that we can ... reuse the fir door coming out of the master ensuite, the pantry and we have one extra door downstairs never used. These will be repurposed in the basement. The upstairs ensuite sinks (2 of) will be reused in the bathroom downstairs etc.

No torch-on crew today. They needed to finish a job in Victoria so they will be here on Monday.

At 10 am Kurtis Electric came for a site visit for putting in the conduit under the concrete for the hot tub. Found out later this morning that the pour is scheduled for October 23rd so it has to be run beforehand.

Meanwhile, our 2 guys had to redig the spot for the hot tub as it was decided today the concrete should be thicker to support the hot tub...... they have known since inception of the signed contract that the hot tub was going there. Again, double the work and the poor guys had to hand dig instead of having the machine do the work 2 weeks ago. So ... 2 guys all day we will be charged to do the work that should have already been done. Yeesh! Another frustrating day with the outside work ... due to poor planning.

Dirt dug down an extra 4 "

Dirt dumped here on side of house that was prepped for sidewalk.

On a better note, Ray did manage to get a great picture yesterday.