basement – Primm & Property

Posted on June 14, 2020June 15, 2020 by Emily · 2 Comments

Day 240

Nearly 8 months into owning this property and building our forever home and we finally have some walls!

I can’t begin to describe to you how excited I was to get in there and walk through the house.

This is the garage…

Of course these criss-crossed supports are temporary, but man did I feel like I was in a James Bond movie trying to sneak through a security laser maze.

Josh was trying to catch some shade as he drank his hot coffee. It was at least 10 degrees cooler in the garage than in the sun.

This is the view out the window from Bu’s (cat) room, off the mudroom. He is not going to know what to do with himself once he sees the neighbor’s horses.

Barry, Kath, and Grandmother came out for a tour. Here I am in my element, explaining the layout of the house and which pieces of furniture will go where.

I got pretty toasty during my lecture, so I went down to check out the basement for some relief from the heat. They got the floor poured Friday and it looks great!

John has done some more work on the grading by the garage, but there is still a bit to go before we can possibly maneuver a vehicle into one of the bays.

He was working on the driveway while we were there yesterday until his equipment broke…

But we have walls(!), so I wasn’t going to let the equipment breakdown get me down.

Someone in my family, who shall remain nameless, asked, “Once framing is done, what is left?”

answer: pretty much everything.

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Emily · 1 Comment

So, they were supposed to pour the garage and basement slabs Monday or Tuesday. The weather was uncooperative (thank you, Cristobal) so that didn’t happen. I decided to drive out to the property on Tuesday between meetings on the off-chance that it wasn’t raining there and there was concrete being poured.

It was raining heavily. And there was no concrete being poured.

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This photo was taken shortly before I stepped out of the car and my foot was nearly swallowed whole by the mud.

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This was after 10 minutes of cleaning.

There was only so much I could do with a roll of paper towels and a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer.

Also, did I mention I was between meetings? As in, after this I had another client meeting?

Thankfully, I had a pair of flip flops in the car. Hopefully that is the first and last time I will wear flip flops to meet a client.

Moving on.

We had an early morning meeting with our builder today and we were pleasantly surprised how much had happened since the shoe incident on Tuesday.

They were pouring the garage slab as we arrived.

Maybe I should ask them where they got their boots…

The also poured the basement steps today. The basement slab will be poured tomorrow.

At least I didn’t step in wet concrete…

The lumber was delivered yesterday (on schedule!) and they got quite a bit done in one day.

This makes me so happy.

This forecast makes me and my shoes even happier!

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Emily

Day 232

Framing is supposed to start this week – woot!

I can hardly keep it together. I am SO excited.

They have rough graded up to the house (and covered up most of the ugly black waterproofing).

This will be a lovely patio one day, shaded from the western sun once the house is complete. Currently, without the shade, it feels like 137 degrees. Welcome to June in Tennessee.

The exterior access basement stairs are formed and ready to be poured along with the basement and garage slabs. Fingers crossed this will happen Monday or Tuesday because lumber is being delivered on Wednesday!

There is still a bit of work to do on the hill by the garage, but John was focusing on grading up to the house this week. Josh should be level with the garage where he is standing.

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In addition to grading around the house, John worked more on the driveway.

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We have over 200 videos documenting this process…

Still not 100%, but getting there.

Josh, assessing the situation. He says there is another 3-4 feet in elevation to be built up at the low spot.

I told him that’s what I thought, too.

(I actually have no idea exactly what this all is supposed to look like other than the layout. This is why Josh is in charge of exterior items.)

We took a new route from the property to my parents’ house and stumbled upon some of our future shopping options.

I have never been in a “Dirt Cheap” before but I am most curious as to what they offer.

I guess there’s only one way to find out…

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Emily

Day 212

We had a three-generation inspection at the property this weekend. My grandmother, mom, and sister hadn’t seen the property in months so it was fun to see their reactions to the big changes since it was just a raw piece of land.

Look at these cuties! I can’t wait until they are coming over for dinner and a visit on the reg.

It’s a little treacherous to walk around the house with all of the rock and dirt, but Grandmother was not about to stay in the car and miss out on seeing everything for herself.

Grandmother, patiently waiting at the front door. I love so many things about this picture.

My seester, Eugene, asking when dinner will be served as she stands in the future dining room.

OK, back to inspecting…

Over the last couple of days, the forms for the basement walls have been removed and the walls have been waterproofed.

They put in a drain so we have a basement instead of an indoor swimming pool.

Thank you.

As we were there, John (earthwork guy) was busy filling in around the basement walls with gravel and dirt to get things leveled out.

I forgot my ladder to be able to get down into the basement and really get a feel for the size, but don’t worry, that will be happening soon.

Grandmother and Eugene were busy watching John in the bobcat…

…Kath was busy watching her firstborn climb a precarious pile of dirt to take this photo.

There’s a lot of rain in the forecast this week, which means it probably won’t rain. I’m hoping by our next visit that some of these block piles will have been rearranged into the foundation.

We shall see!

Posted on May 15, 2020May 18, 2020 by Emily

Day 210

It is looking more and more like we may actually get this house built!

Today, they poured the basement walls. We arrived just as the pump truck was departing.

Check. It. Out.

Word is these forms will likely come off tomorrow.

This whole “forms and pouring concrete” process blows my mind.

This lovely little section is where the exterior steps to the basement will be. There will be a lot of dirt filled in around it once the forms are removed. Thank goodness.

We will probably use this access 12 times in the next 50 years, but hey, we will be glad we have it when we need it.

The view from the top of Pride Dirt Pile.

Also, many piles of split face concrete block have arrived for the non-basement parts of the house where we will have a crawl space.

While I may use the exterior basement stairs on occasion, I hope I never experience the crawl space firsthand.

John (earthwork guy) was busy moving and distributing Pride Dirt Pile because he has to dig a lengthy trench for the electrical that will run from the start of the driveway all the way to the far corner of the garage.

It sure is great to have so much space until you have to put in the infrastructure for utilities.

On the bright side, “Meadowcrest”, as we’ve named our property, is looking super meadow-y out front.

Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Posted on April 25, 2020 by Emily

Day 186

We have a basement!

Well…a hole for the basement, that is.

We’re doing a partial basement, approximately 500 square feet, to house the water heater, HVAC system, electrical panel, etc., and to serve as a storm shelter. We decided against a full basement because we will have plenty of room in the house itself and we do not want to be tempted to “collect” a lot of items we do not use. We’ll see how that pans out, but we have high hopes for our anti-hoarding selves.

Or perhaps we could turn it into an indoor swimming pool…

Check out the different layers of soil. It looks like a medium/medium rare steak to me.

Miraculously, we didn’t hit any rock. You never know in Tennessee so we got lucky.

The basement is supposed to be poured next week! I’m as excited about this as I was about Santa Claus coming when I was five years old.

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The only critter of note on the trail camera was a coyote. It’s been very windy the last week or so and thus we have 79 videos of the branch shaking in front of the camera. I think it’s time to reposition the camera….

Primm & Property

Tag: basement