Concrete is Complete!
View from the street.
View from the back.
The Patio is done as well! Looking East.
Looking West.
Seriously great concrete. If you are in Phoenix or around, you really owe it to yourself to use Chayce Concrete!
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Concrete is Complete! View from the back. At the end of the day yesterday, the forms had been placed.
The lads arrived at the crack of dawn to prep for the concrete. Here they are tamping the dirt for the slab. First up was the patio and heater slabs. Here they are tamping the concrete, to eliminate voids and pockets. Driveway formwork is underway. The lads from Chayce Concrete are forming up today. Concrete tomorrow. In the back they are forming for the water heater and the new alcove for the reefer. This morning at 8:43 am the first block was laid. I live in what is euphemistically know as the ‘inner city’, and we still have meter readers. Lorenzo from Chayce Concrete stopped by to check on progress. The block guys will probably be done tomorrow early, and it will be a couple of days for the gates. Lorenzo’s crew will probably start grading for the driveway and the slab in the back on monday. Meanwhile, I am thinking about patios, and grass. I would rather not deal with grass, but it is the only way to control the dust and crap that floats around here. Sprinklers, timers, lawn mowers, blah, blah blah…. Block showed up at 1:00. A lot of Block. All mine. Desert Brown. I have a friend who does stained glass, and has given me a bunch of books to look at for a pattern for the window in the media room. The pillows on top is the answer. It is a good looking counterpoint to the pillows below which was the inspiration for the living room
9 am the concrete truck arrived. Two guys with wheelbarrows moved the concrete and poured the footing. The third guy spread, leveled and installed the rebar for the columns. 300 feet of footing, 9 yards of concrete. This is the west side. This is the east side, soon to be home to the new driveway. While they were here, I snagged a bit of concrete to square off my porch. Flo and Walnut are resting, although Flo is still cranky about strangers wandering around Here is the casa at 11:30. The guys will be back to start doing the block at noon… Monday was a wash with me finding out if I could extend my fence to the back of the fence behind. I called the city and ended going down there. The city has an alley guy. Nice guy. The short version is no, unless the utilities or the city needs to dig up the sewer. Meanwhile the lads are almost finished with the trenching. I am known in certain circles as the guy who builds stuff to last. I am a victim of my craft. I built this temporary structure 3 years ago, to enclose the water heater. Yes, folks do put them outside. It took me 9 hours to build this. Including paint. Since the driveway folks are going to be here, I decided to have the slab in the back of the house poured at the same time. To move that project along, I started to tear down the shed to clear the area for the concrete folks. This is what I got done yesterday. I finished it up this afternoon which didn’t take as long, as I drove up to a clients house and worked on their computer, stopped by the Walk in Closet project, to see how that is going,(just fine as it is painted, he installed the closet rods, she is moving the clothes in) The new slab will be 8′ wide and 10 feet deep. I will be here all week as the blocklayers and concrete guys will be here, and I don’t want my dogs eating anyone. I will be going to the parts store after they leave for the day. I will frame up the exterior walls, move the water heater, frame up the alcove ,add a valve for the ice maker, wire in a receptacle for the fridge and build a new roof that will extend 3 feet beyond the wall, giving me a nice overhang. Then I will go in the kitchen and open up the doorway, sheetrock, tape, paint and move the fridge. In remodeling, there is a great feeling of accomplishment in doing it yourself. If the numbers of housebloggers is any indication, there is a lot of accomplishment going on. There are times when you need to step back and balance your life against your skill and time. Sometime you need to call in the pros. When I first moved in, I had enough money to either do the fence or to foam the roof. In retrospect I made a wise choice. Having won a lottery prize, the work on mi casa continues. Next up is the Fence n Driveway Project. Early on I recognized, that the guy who did the house flip didn’t have a clue about construction. The driveway in its current location has a couple of problems. 1. It slopes to the house. 2. It also slopes to the center of the driveway. Runoff and standing water are the major problems.
So having some money, I went in search of a fence company to build my fence. I found the folks at Hurricane Fence. They are a neighborhood company, and were able to give me a reasonable price for my fence. Shop Local. They also have built a lot of the fences in my neighborhood, and understand my concerns during construction regarding making sure that the neighbor dogs are secure during construction. As an added bonus, I will be able to recycle my old gates to the house next door. This will help her keep her dog in her yard. No this is about me. I don’t want to chase her dog in the mornings. Nor do I want to be woken up by dog fights by the packs of dogs that develop and roam around. So the other side of the house will look like this. This project kicks off Monday Morning. |
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