Been so long since I wrote about this, I had to go back to remember where I was – oh yea, we had a basement.

Next step was putting on the deck. That was pretty uneventful. Just putting up trusses and sheathing.

And tarp, cause it looked like it was going to rain. We got pretty good at putting tarp over things during this project.

Once we had the decking on, and the walls had a chance to set up, hubby got out the skidsteer and backfilled. He did put down drain tile and rocks before the dirt. While he was digging out for the new sump hole, he hit rocks and lots of water started flowing in. He found the old drain set up for the existing cellar. They only had a layer of rocks, but it seemed to be working. Was a good thing, now the new drainage system was hooked up with the old drainage system.

Our original plans were to put the walls up next. But we got to looking at the basement floor, and decided maybe it would be better to deal with that BEFORE we closed it up more. I figured we’d just be running the shoot in the window opening, but I think this did turn out better.

So we called for sand and went to work leveling out the floor.

oh, did I say "we", I meant "I" - don't I do nice work. Hubby did help, he used the skidsteer to dump sand in the basement.

My husband decided he was willing to tackle the cement job. The floor is 22’ x 11’, so not very big. I figured, what the heck, we could never finish the basement because of the water, so even if it didn’t turn out that nice, it would be ok. My husband does a lot of things really well, be he has very little experience with larger slabs of cement. I am sure we did a lot wrong, but in the end we had a cement floor in the basement. It does have a low spot where one shouldn’t be, but over all it sort of slopes toward the drain . . . Hubby was not pleased, and I had to keep reminding him that we decided BEFORE he did this that it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t turn out picture perfect! It was the first week in April when we did the floor. I took that week off work so we could get lots of work done (yea, right!!)

Next we moved on to framing up the walls. We had a lot of work to do removing and trimming back the overhang on the old section. That’s when we discovered the north side of the old section had cedar shingles under the two layers of asphalt shingles. We had some pretty strong winds, and that made raising the walls a bit hairy. At one point I woke up my son (he works nights) so he could come out and help me hold the wall up while hubby nailed it in place.

Got the walls up and started setting trusses. That’s when we realized Menards employees can’t count. I know better than to let them figure anything out for me. We were one truss short, and they were custom ordered. We’ve made trusses before, so ended up building one. We have such a short span, I was not worried about structural safety in this case.

Time for a little side note. Our first plans included extending the house and matching the roof line, then we decided to raise the addition because of the water problems. Hubby wanted to use trusses, so we ended up running the peak of the new roof perpendicular to the old roof. Well, they always say you should look up before you plan things.

As we were setting trusses, we realized we were getting awfully close to the incoming power line. I think we had about 3’ clearance between the roof and the line – way to close for my comfort. The whole while we were putting up sheathing on the roof, I kept saying “remember the power line.” I think hubby was about ready to grab it just to put himself out of misery.

We decided we needed to get the power line moved, and was best to do it now, before we re-roofed the section were it was now. Underground is the only way to go for me, so we put in a call to the power company. At least this early in the spring, they don’t have a lot of work to do and they were able to come out later that week.

When we first moved in, we waited over three weeks for them to install a new yard light for us. Hubby got tired of waiting, and decided he could do it himself. It started out being somewhat calm, so he backed up the pickup and put the ladder in the bed and extended it all the way up to reach the old light he needed to remove. He got about half way done with the project when the wind kicked up. Not wanting to give up, he hung in there –literally, when the wind gusted he had to hang on to the pole to keep from getting blown down. He’s up at the top, getting mad and cussing out the wind, I’m down at the bottom hanging on to the ladder with all my might, praying that God doesn’t get upset with his language and blow his sorry a$$ off. The more he cussed, the more I prayed, and I was so glad when he finally said “I’m done” and climbed down. Some day we’re going to be too old for these types of stupid human tricks!!

¶ 7:53 PM