Day 65: The Garage Finally Gets Its Concrete, and The Roof is Raised

Things are picking up -- partly, I imagine, because I told the contractor on Friday that we won't be paying our next installment until the framing is officially signed off by the inspector. (That was our agreement, after all, but I think the contractor was trying to get the money early, hoping we wouldn't care.)

Having officially gotten the OK by the inspector on Friday to pour the garage foundation, the concrete guys were at the house bright and early on Saturday -- we're talking 6:30 in the morning. Quite an early wakeup call. But it was a nice one -- finally! Concrete!







In a bit of a bummer, the concrete was poured around the pre-existing garage floor. That means we'll have a slightly bizarre-looking floor -- two different sets of concrete, with a band (once the foundation) making an L-shape in the middle. The job foreman said it was necessary, though, to keep the old foundation there and add on to it. Still not 100% sure why they didn't just tear up the entire floor... but I guess the question is moot now. (And maybe it wasn't possible since we were keeping that one wall up).



On to the fun stuff: We got our whirlpool (above) -- it's an American Standard. The first one, a Kohler, came to us cracked. I like Kohler better as a brand, but I suppose this will do. Our sink and toilet, however, will have to be Kohler Memoirs brand, or we're sending them straight back.





In other news, the back windows are now gone. Here, the kitchen window is temporarily boarded up, but the view will eventually open -- so as you're cooking/doing dishes/etc. you can see the activity in the family room or even watch the new TV.



Here's the bathroom, with the shower plumbing in place and the wall also boarded up. Which means our current bedroom window has also been removed (we saved the actual window). It made for a cold night last night.

Also, we've amended our family room's electrical sockets to add in what my dad suggested -- a phone line and cable line toward the ground -- for the DVR/VCR/etc. -- as well as tubing from above (for the future flat screen TV) down to the DVR/VCR etc. below.



Here's a closeup of the now empty window in our current bedroom. You can see how, at some point, the home's original plaster walls were covered with drywall. That explains why many of the home's cracks are in straight lines -- it's the plaster underneath that's cracking, while on the walls we see it shows up in the seams between drywall.





And finally, work on the roof has begun. Above, a worker early on Monday begins prep work.





The prep work included taking the Spanish tile off the roof, as you can see in the above two spots.