Rain Clouds and Dirt Piles

The mudders have been here every night doing their thing, making our walls look more like walls. This is a slow process. They add mud layer by layer (night by night). Eventually they will sand it. Many people have told me that the dry wall sanding is by far the worst part of the reno process. The dust is really fine and it gets EVERYWHERE. I can't even deal. The outside of the house is not any cleaner right now. The crew has started digging out the foundation on the garage and exposing the existing footings.

 

The work in the above photo was done with a jack hammer, but in order to make progress on the trenches, we needed to bring in the big guns.

 

 

A nice side effect of digging the trenches was removing the scraggly bushes in the driveway.

The trenches are about 4 feet deep around the perimeter of the garage slab. While he was at it, we even asked the guy to rip out the fitzers in the side yard. Those bushes are everywhere on the property and will likely haunt me for the rest of my life.

Things were going really well, the sun was out, birds were chirping....and then....and then......the storm cloud of all storm clouds rolled in at approx. 100 miles and hour. With in minutes, all hell broke loose. So much rain came down, I can't even describe it. The amount of water flowing down the street was simply insane.

This might be a great time to remind everyone that we have no windows on the house. We also pulled most of the roof off the garage. I am sure you can guess what happened next. Water from the roof of the garage started flowing back to the house. Next thing you know....

I could have helped, but someone had to take pictures!

I hope none of you has to verify this fact, but roof water (from a previously tar covered roof) ranks somewhere between cesspool and swamp water. It was so gross. Luckily, there were a few workers around waiting for the storm to let up. When we asked for the buckets and told them why, they sprang into action.

They raised the house side of the roof and created a water channel. This fixed the water from flowing into the house. It is a temporary fix, but we ordered the water proof membrane today. Nothing like roof water in your kitchen to get the garage materials ordered! The rain cloud left about as quickly as it rolled in, leaving us with a driveway full of mud.

Buckley, king of the dirt pile.

I have been so focused on the inside of the house, that I have not really thought much about the work outside. The regular crew will switch to the garage and exterior painting while the walls are being finished and the wood floors go in. Things are going to start coming together really quickly. The only things that are up in the air are the delivery date on the windows/doors, master tile, and kitchen cabinets. Most of these items are slated for October 15th, but who knows. Until then, I will just cook in my kitchen with drippy roof water. Pasta anyone?