It's amazing... I'm Floored!!

Last week involved some rain (3 days to be precise) and 3 days of frantic working once the sun arrived and involved sorting out a supply issue and a 120 mile round trip dash for flooring!

Almost too much excitement for one week.

Once the rain left and the sun made a reappearance......

 

 and the supply issue was resolved.....

the work began...

 

Inspections were completed throughout the project....

and finally it was all laid.....

OMG the crawl space is covered up, how can we get down there to hang out...

Hello, hello is there anyone there....

Obviously its not just as simple as laying sheets of plywood, there was glue involved, each sheet is tongue and groove to the next front to back, and there were other tips and tricks to getting it laid, Mr M still needs to go round and trim up the edges and something else (I might have stopped listening to that bit of chat) before moving on to framing the walls.

Impressive hey - I'm Floored!

The sunshine and warm weather are welcome in the garden, my seeds are starting to show some real potential at last....

 

It has also coincided with a super low tide so we have been exploring parts of the beach that are normally under water....

Starfish that have been known to eat a man they are so large *old pirates tale*

In this week's edition of Homes and Gardens....

... things are moving along!

Just incase there was any doubt, Mr M does work :)

 

 

Rim joists are placed around the outside of the building and nailed to the mudsills, then the floor joists are nailed to the rim joists (see I DO pay attention)..



Double joists are where the walls will be....

All the joists are lined up neat and tidy 16 inches apart like little soldiers... or people planking...

Keep on working Mr M....

All the joists are spaced with central blocking.....

Looks really cool... maybe we should leave it like this... make a maze and charge people to come and find their way out! we could be millionaires...

Moving forward the floor is next, plus all the drainage needs to be put in around the foundations and it needs backfilling, lots of things are now on the to do list!

Onto more interesting stuff......

I am working on the next phase of my veggie garden, I plan to have the veggie garden all completed by the end of this summer "yeah right" so next year I can work on the garden proper.

So all of last year (and still a work in progress), I have been laying down gravel pathways, the next step is to edge them all with pavers (anyone who knows my Dad will understand where the obsession with straight and tidy lines comes from)...  I figure if I do 30 at a time it will not only spread the cost it will save my back...

 

 

The garden is getting all planted up, potatoes are in their bins, peas are in, turnips and beets are on their way up as are the first round of radishes and carrots...

I am diligently working on keeping the deer away from temptation, raspberries are fully netted this year..

And everyone is putting in the full effort to make this a successful growing season....





Giddy up and ride your pony "wall"...

... bit of a horse theme going on lately!

So what's been happening?  Mr M has finished up the mud sills, leveled and bolted down!

Then he had to giddy up and build his pony wall! The pony wall is for the floor joists to sit on whilst allowing access to both sides of the crawl space, its nice and spacious so Mr M will have lots of room for rolling around in there!

Next he laid the septic pipes, there was some digging involved...

Then he had to fill it all in again, quite repetitive this building malarkey...

We have still been having a drop of the wet stuff, apparently this is April Showers - more like April Soakings... the ducks have decided if we don't want the house they will move in...

Unfortunately for them this sump pump takes care of any flood issues...

So the floor joists have been delivered and that will be the next job "on site"...

The garden "work in progress" got some fancying up this weekend, I found these super cute metal bird post caps for my new garden fence...

Can you name them all? They aren't all native to Oregon and US fans will obviously have an advantage...

Laters Taters!!

Dispatch from the trenches....

... all soldiers could be suffering from trenchfoot!

Monday morning dawned bright and early and everyone arrived "on site".  Concrete trucks, concrete pump and men, lots of men!

Concrete got poured out of the truck into the pump...

and then basically pooped its way out of this big tube into the formers...

Men then go around with a big vibratoring thing vibrating into the concrete to remove air.,..

Whilst other men go around and smooth the top of the concrete..

All these men.....

Worked their socks off and in less than 4 hours the foundations were in...

So we had some sun which allowed the concrete to set, then some of the men came back and took off the formers... and voila.... job done..

Mr M has now started, he is working on getting the mud sills in place! Mud sills are bits of wood that are the interface between the concrete and the floor joists, lots of measuring, some more measuring and hole drilling.....

He will be finishing up these this week and all his floor joists are being delivered at some point.  Check back next week for progress!

So its still raining in Oregon on and off (more on than off) and this last week we had a big windstorm one night, the wind came from a different direction to normal and we had a lot of branches come down! My chickens must have woken with a start when 2 huge branches hit the chicken coop... luckily the ducks are there to protect them!  This has now been fixed and life continues on as normal for the FU...

 

Get the bonfire started up Mr M, we have more stuff to burn....