I finished the framing around the inside of the new window today.
Since the existing interior framing of the walls was not square to the
new window, I made each of these blocks slightly wider than the one
below. I had to do something similar on the right side as well.
With sheetrock, waiting to be taped.
I helped my dad pour concrete for a ramp in his backyard today. He
stacked the rocks and had the forms in place before I arrived. He
also poured some concrete to stabilize the rocks. Then we poured the
ramp. I did most of the mixing and he did most of the rest.
This job only took us about an hour and we still had 7 days left so I
asked what else we could do, and he said he was thinking about making
some kind of walkway from the back deck to his greenhouse. Since we
had some concrete left over and some time, I suggested that we just
pour a sidewalk. After some measuring and estimating how much
concrete it would take, I started digging.
About two hours later, I had most of the excavation done.
By then, the ramp was looking pretty good and we headed off to Lowe's
for some more bags of concrete mix and some lumber for the sidewalk
forms. After two trips, we had the equivalent of 19 80-pound bags of
concrete mix. We could only put about 6 bags at a time in his car.
Thankfully, Lowe's is not too far away and by the end of the day, we
had most of the forms in place.
After thinking about it some more, we decided to pick up another 6
bags before starting to pour the sidewalk. By around noon, we had the
forms ready to go, and most of the bags of concrete mix ready to go.
Two hours later we were out of mix and not quite finished.
Thankfully, Lowe's is not too far away. We picked up another six
bags.
Those bags didn't last long, and we still didn't have enough concrete
to fill the forms. So back to Lowe's again. By this time, I was
having trouble getting the bags in and out of the trunk of the car, so
we switched back to 40-pound bags. In the end, we used the equivalent
of about 33 80-pound bags of concrete mix. We were both pretty beat.
After dinner, I smoothed and brushed the last of it in the dark.
The next morning, the walk was looking pretty good. I pulled the
forms off, filled in around the walk with some of the dirt we had
removed, and hosed it off.
The ramp was looking good too, so I guess this was a success.
For the rest of the week, I only volunteered for easy projects.
After returning from Austin, I mostly worked on cleaning up tools in
the basement and other small chores, but we had to deal with the
leaves today. Ugh.
I finally decided to do something about the
hole in the basement wall
that we uncovered about 2 years and 9 months ago. I stuffed a couple
of bricks and some mortar in it, and I'll finish it off with some
setting joint compound. It looks better already. I don't know why it
took me this long to do this. What was I waiting for?
