Major Progress, October 2009

This is the third and final post in the "Major Progress" series.  Matt wants to do a post real soon that covers the highlights from the past 4 years of excavation and re-structuring, so keep an eye out for that!  You can sign up to "follow" our blog and receive notification when we update it.

In the meantime, October has been a slow-going month compared to the past 2 months.  We have had a lot of rain this month, which makes exterior work especially difficult.  There have been so many odds & ends to complete.  Collectively, these odds & ends have made a big impact on the way the house looks from the back yard and driveway.  Here it goes. . .

Some of you may already know, but we LOVE the Cafe Chopped sandstone available at Stone Gardens in Lowell.  It is quarried from Flagstone Heights quarry in Prairie Grove. . . and is a beautiful, local material.  Plus, we recently found out that we can have it cut or "chopped" to whatever dimensions we need.  We had one stone cut to fit the basement window sill, another cut to fit the top stair tread, and several others cut to the dimension needed to cap the retaining wall.  I think Boxley likes it, too:

Extending the driveway stone edging:

Applying Tuff Coat II as the finish material on the retaining walls.  This material is pretty slick!  It is designed to give a rock-hard finish to styrofoam walls.  It trowels-on like stucco in 2 coats.  The first coat is a skim coat over a sticky mesh.  The second coat is for the finish texture.  Another great thing is that we were able to have it custom-tinted so that we never have to paint it!

Boxley likes to be right in the middle of things:

With the final landscaping and lighting installed above the retaining wall, we are very pleased with the progress so far this month.  The next phase of this landscaping project is slated for next year, after the baby arrives.  The plan is to cover the concrete patio and walkway with a flagstone pavers and add a new deck off the soon-to-be remodeled kitchen:

I took this photo before we had the step lights installed at the bottom of the retaining wall.  I will try to take a night time photo because that is when it looks so pretty!

I just found out that our basement window and door did not get put on the truck that left Wisconsin on Monday.  :(  Apparently with the economy, they are not sending out as many trucks in a given week, so we have to wait for the next truck to fill up.  I am incredibly frustrated because we need these installed in order to have the house appraised by end of the month.   I expressed our urgency in the most diplomatic way possible, so our Jeld-Wen guy is looking at some other ways of getting our window and door units closer to Arkansas. . . maybe he can send another truck to meet up somewhere.  We'll see.  It looks like it may be the end of next week before we can have them delivered.  UGH!

Major Progress, August & September 2009

Then, we continued along our strict schedule to have the ICF walls filled with concrete by the end of August:

We were both so happy to have gotten to this point. . . to have actual walls!!  Plus, the excellent work of Ralph Siebert and his concrete crew at put us at ease!

We removed the "safety" fencing and started to backfill the walls with gravel.  We are grateful to our friend and neighbor, Sam Friday, for loaning us his Kubota tractor:

Then, Matt added a course of CMU's to make the ICF wall a little taller in order to work with our landscaping grades:

Then, were were swamped with another load of gravel!

Thankfully, Susan, John, and Jay came down for a grueling weekend of moving gravel.  Together, we were able to backfill all of the interior ICF walls.  We were all VERY sore after moving 20 tons of gravel, literally 20 tons!  John had just had a bike wreck, too.  Those Mihalevich's are such hard workers!

Our next goal was to have all the foundation repair completed, slab installed, and exterior stairs by the end of September.  Somehow, we did it!

Window and door bucks installed for foundation repair to be completed:

Underslab plumbing:

Stego Wrap vapor barrier. . .we are not messing around with moisture in this basement!

Concrete slab:

And, finally, the exterior stairs!  We spent a long night building our stair forms:

Then, had the concrete scheduled for the next day. . . after inspection approval, of course:

Thanks to David Higgins and a long night of work, we had a beautiful finish on the concrete stairs. . . and we remain on schedule!

Major Progress, July & August 2009

The past few months have been intense!  We have made so much progress that is best explained with photos. . . Enjoy!

Our deadline was to have the footings poured by the end of July.  We were on schedule:

Followed by some stone foundation repair:

Then, preparing the area that would soon be behind the retaining wall with drainage and filter fabric:

The installation of ICF blocks took only one weekend!  It is the ultimate material for the do-it-yourselfers.  We found this amazing product, called ARXX, through Stitt Energy Systems.

The Big Dig and Pregnancy Gig

Four years and two months later, we have decided to blog about the basement & remodel project. . . Also known as the "Big Dig".  The seed was planted the other day when our cabinet guy asked if we had a blog for the project. . . NO!  I could not believe that we had not gotten around to it.  We have taken thousands of photos and lived through so many stories related to this insanity.  Plus, as you all know by now, we found out this summer that we are expecting a little baby in our lives--due March 6th.  As we like to say, there is nothing like a deadline to get a project done!  We have hit full speed towards completion so that spending time with the baby will be our new project.  With so much going on during this exciting time in our lives, it seems like the perfect time to blog about it.

So, for all you curious folks, we hope you enjoy some occasional updates and photos as we head for the finish line.

The following is one of our favorite photos, taken June 2008. . . a noteworthy turning point in "The Big Dig" when we removed the conveyor belt!