Summary: 

• Went to Utah Sun-Wed so short week
• Started subfloor cutting.
  • Couldn’t place because glue was delayed 😦
• Rented a Jumping Jack one more time
  • BACKFILL DONE!
• Finished installing hangers in steel beam

Hi all!

  We went to Utah for the first half of the week so we definitely had less time to work on the project. It was a decent time to be gone though because the project site dried out a ton while we were gone which made for some good progress when we got back.

   One thing that was a bit frustrating was the fact that the subfloor foam glue I ordered from amazon was supposed to show up Tuesday. But it got delayed until tomorrow! That was really frustrating but I still found stuff to stay busy. I did add a big block of wood that will go under the subfloor.  This chunk of wood is where the steel beam we place to open up the existing house will run its load down to the foundation. So I did that plus some subfloor prep where I cut several pieces and temporarily placed them (while I anxiously await my glue.)

After that Karianne and I prepped for the final backfill. This usually involves dumping piles of dirt with the excavator and then shoveling it to mostly flat so the jumping jack can compact it. The jumping jack rental is $84 a day so we wanted to make good use of the time we had it. Karianne brought it back Friday at 5p.m. and we ran it pretty dang hard until 12:30p.m. the next day.  I stayed up running it at night with my flood light and even got up long before the sun and ran it some more with the light before the sun came up. Luckily neighbors aren’t all that close or we’d probably get some complaints 🙂

One super amazing thing was that Karianne jumped on the combo tractor and became an operator!.  That was amazing because she kept prepping more areas for the jumping jack. With her out in front and being able to move the dirt we made really good time. So big shout out to Karianne!

And while I’m doing shout outs, I got to mention my neighbor Mark.  He is a bit older and wants to help so bad! But due to age can’t, but what he has done is just as good, maybe even better. He lets us borrow all of his tools, tractors and everything. I have no idea where we would be without him.  He is making the project so much easier. So thanks Mark!!!

I can’t not tell you how happy I am to have the backfill done and that it was dry enough to do it!  Such a huge milestone. After finishing the backfill I spent a good 6 hours sitting up on my steel beams and finished mounting all of the hangers for the joists. What a pain! Each bracket has 4 nails so I had to “fire a 22” 4 times every bracket you see in the picture (x2 cause there are just as many brackets on both sides of the beams). But the hangers on the garage beams are done! There are 11 more hangers that I will need to install on the other steel beam when we place that.

This upcoming week I hope to get all the subfloor down on the main floor and get the gravel prepped for the garage floor. The week of the 23rd we are hoping to get the garage floor poured which will be amazing!  Can’t wait! Until next week!!

Mark

p.s. Karianne played with some AI rendering this week. This is the general idea we are currently thinking for the exterior finish!