Steel Framing

Tim and Tony spent the day putting in the steel framing.

I think they're about halfway done now.

Basement Subfloor

Tim has returned to the job. On Monday he and Tony finished clearing the floor and then primed over the paint. Then, yesterday they started pouring cement. I have to be honest, I'm not exactly sure if they used regular cement or something special to level the floor. The floor still has an overall slope, but it is flat enough to put down flooring.

The coating was dry by the morning of Day 3.

Then they started putting down DRICORE subfloor panels. They're really neat panels and are ideal for the basement as there is an air gap under them so if we have water infiltration again, they should be able to survive the encounter.

Tim Austin on the left and his employee, Tony.

They mostly had all the subfloor installed by the end of today.

I think tomorrow they're going to start putting in seismic bracing.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you have a safe and happy holiday. We don't have any lovely glamour shots this year because we didn't manage to get any decorations up because we were spending our time sifting and cleaning out the basement for the last several weeks and our main floor is such a mess from stuff moving upstairs. So, this year, we won't be doing anything beyond having a nice meal to celebrate.

Tim and his assistant, Tony, spent the last couple of days doing demo and the basement is ready for the next step. Unfortunately, the permits on Tim's other job finally came through so he is going to disappear for the next couple of weeks, so it will be a while yet before we see any progress.

The ceiling was a big mess to demo. It was full of rock wool and cardboard and Tim said was quite a pain to cleanout but we needed the ceiling cleared so we can install LOTS of can lights. I am determined that this space will not feel like a dungeon anymore.

Jeff got a job at Intel (again) and he'll be starting on January 24. He hasn't had a job since 2010, so it will be a bit of an adjustment as we figure out our new daily routines. Ack, I will have to start doing some cooking again. Though, it will definitely be nice to have an income; I predict much more traveling in our future!

Basement Ready!

It has been a very long time since the basement has been this empty! It's been a long haul, but we made it in time for Tim to start on Monday. 

That last pile of stuff is trash and recycling

If we can get the chair out of the basement in one piece,
we have a nice couple who will happily take it for us.

Also, with our current streak of appliance bad luck, our tankless water heater decided to die on Friday, so we haven't had hot water all weekend. Tim said he has experience putting in the instant hot units so we are hoping they are available. I don't know what we'll do if they're also impossible to get now because of the chip shortage.

Basement Work Prep

We've worked all week emptying the basement. There is still quite a lot to do, but we've made great progress. I thought the 10x20 storage was way too big, but it turns out we had a lot of stuff squirreled away down in the basement. 

We've got all the furniture out that we want to keep and now I'm just working on sifting/sorting the loose stuff.

The rugs are going away tomorrow on our local
Buy Nothing group. The recliner is also going away.

We brought several pieces of furniture to storage from the main floor to clear space for exercise and for the TV setup. We bought this little media center off craigslist to use during the remodel. We'll resell it once we can move back down into the basement.

Christmas is canceled this year. We don't have the bandwidth to deal with the remodel and the decorating. At least we have the loaner range now so we can have a decent meal on the day.

Loaner Range

BASCO finally brought us a loaner range today after I had a good rant at them last week. Yeah, Thanksgiving sucked with no oven. This is on loan until our Fisher & Paykel comes in. 

BASCO did not order the new range until this week so it is likely it will be more likely the end of January before we get it. I very much regret ordering the Ilve back in May; I never would have if I'd had any idea of the headache it would turn into.

For Jeff's birthday in November, I bought him an Oculus Quest 2. He immediately signed up for the Supernatural exercise app at the recommendation of a friend. We've really been enjoying exercising to music. We actually had to empty out the front parlor area to make space for us to stand there and swing around our arms. It's the only space on the main floor that has enough clearance below the light fixtures.

Our main floor is going to be quite cramped with the addition of the TV and gaming computer. We're planning to take most of the furniture to storage to make room during the basement project.

Packing Again

It has begun again. Yet another storage locker.

The unit is way larger than we need but that size was "on sale" and cost little more than a locker half the size.

We started packing boxes in earnest today. It won't take us long to get the bulk of the stuff out of the basement. We're also going to be moving out about half the furniture from the living room so we can make room for Jeff's gaming rig and for the TV.

I'm hoping we'll only have the stuff in storage until a couple weeks after the basement is finished, probably late-February.