#5 - While You Were Away

Here's where we left off. 

Matt took off all the brick and the electrician came to remove the electrical box and place it on a board to keep it in place.  For reference, the fuse box, which will be updated during this project to 200 amp, is inside the current laundry room. Not only do we want modern electrical service, but it's no longer acceptable to have the panel above a dryer and there's supposed to be more space around it, so even without the addition we would have had to address this issue soon anyway.

A positive aspect of this project is that we're getting the most bang for our buck.  We're going to take care of ALL of the updates we've been needing.  The electric is one of them, so the fact that it's part of this project is a good thing.  So, on the outside it's the meter, on the inside it's the laundry room. Here's a little bit of an idea what my laundry room looks like and why I lose my ever-loving mind on a daily basis we need some more space.





 My blender lives on my dryer, my microwave lives above my dryer and a whole bunch of other junk lives in the laundry room too. Not ideal!  My crock pot used to live on top of our water softener brine tank in the hallway closet, but that's another story for another day and why I have been uptight for my wholeentirelife about what belongings I actually want to keep. Every square foot matters!  One tiny new item can completely rock the boat around here.  In my dream world, there's a place for everything and everything is in its place.  I cannot. wait. for that dream to become a reality! 

My blender will have a home!  Matt will have 200 amp electric.  And we'll live happily ever after.



When we first started dreaming about this project back in the winter, we had so many variations of the following conversation:

Person 1: So, I wonder when we can start this project if we decide to go for it.
Person 2:  Obviously, it'll be during the week of July 16th.  No question!

 We just knew that it would really gain momentum during this past week because it was the week we had planned to be away at family camp (A Christian camp that I grew up going to and that we have gone to as a family for the past 3 years.) Well, we accurately predicted the future!  Sure enough! That's what happened. Thankfully it was no problem for us to be away.

We left for camp on Sunday afternoon, and the foundation crew came on Tuesday! 

So, while we were hanging with the family (literally and figuratively), sweating our heads off, listening to great teaching, eating 3 square meals a day (that I didn't have to cook) and doing all kinds of other fun things like this:

Miss E getting ready to ride the zipline for the first time

Most of us took a turn on the giant swing

Miss C conquered her fear and went for it!  She was all harnessed up the first time, climbed the ladder to be clipped to the rope and started crying and climbed down.  Then, she watched about 5 other people swing and at the verylastsecond decided to go for it!  It was neat to watch her gather her courage!

 

We really slept (well. kinda slept) under the stars in hammocks for an entire night!  All 7 of us (our neice and nephew came along with us)!  I was so proud of the kids (and myself!)

 

My Heaven on Earth: The Craft Cabin. 

 

Goofing around - hanging upside down :)

 

The foundation crew accomplished this:

 

 

The four pictures above were taken on Tuesday after they dug the trenches for the earth-form footer. An earth-form footer is just that.  It's when they use the soil to create a mold instead of additional supplies (Styrofoam maybe? I'm not sure.) We have clay soil that can be molded into a form by just digging a trench in it.  Notice that we also have an "amazing" ground water supply.  So, in the event we ever have a major city-wide or national catastrophe and lose city water supply, we're in luck because we can just dig a hole and find insane amounts of water.  (Which is actually a pain in the neck for a plumbing-related project matt is working on in the front yard. But, I'm bound and determined to dig some kind of well in Phase 1,138 of this project so I can use it to water my flowers! Phase 1,137 is a Craft Cabin in the backyard.)

 

The next pictures are current as of 45 minutes ago!  We returned home from camp today and this is what we found.  WHOA. This actually makes the area of the addition look and feel a lot bigger than when it was covered with just grass.  Inside those trenches is a beautiful footer! Notice the block for the walls in the left of the first picture.  They'll be back tomorrow to work on those.  That hole in the middle of the dirt area, pictured right below the AC is where the current sewer pipe is.  I'm pretty sure it'll stay there.  Matt included a picture below.  That might be important and interesting to some of you, but I don't really know why. 

And that's where we stand.  Ripping out the patio seemed like a big huge deal, but now that our yard is a giant mud hole, the patio is like ... nothing.

Up next: framing.  We'd love to be in by Christmas!  Anyone want to make bets on if that'll happen or not?

Happy weekend!