The Concrete Party

We have a concrete basement floor now! It's been a long day.  Matt and I arrived at 6:30am to finish laying out and tying rebar before our concrete showed up at 8am. And we just made it.



Yet again, we had to call for more concrete. But this time, we really needed it.  As I feared when I called in another order for concrete, we got too much in the extra delivery. This time, I took my friends advice and had some forms ready to make concrete pavers! But not enough to use up all of the concrete. Doh!We have learned that we really must order 20% more than the volume we expect we would need to pour the floor. Why isn't this a rule of thumb that I've heard of before? This was an expensive lesson to learn. I have to say, a lot of concrete work is thinking on the fly.  We had to jerry-rig a concrete shute that brought the stuff a little deeper into the basement. A I-joist and some scrap wood did the trick!

I had a fabulous crew: Philip, Tai, Tyler, Deanna, and of course, Matt, our foreman. Philip, again, saves the day by having a good, solid big wheel barrow.  Our "yardwork grade" wheel barrows didn't cut it this time.  And one of them is now very lame.

We were done by 1pm this time.  I spent another hour trying to get the pavers sorted out.  I'll let Serena post more about that. She came up with a good idea that I hope will work. And now, Matt and I are taking a breather before we have to finish trowelling into the night. This time, we have LIGHTS!