Sunroom demo: Now you see it; Now you don't.

The next phase of the renovation project is well underway. Demo of the sunroom is complete and the voids in the cinderblock foundation are being filled with rebar & cement. We just had a slight delay from the former tropical storm Hannah. The basement is completely exposed to the elements so we had to batten down the hatches somehow. We screwed down a tarp under the eaves of the roof line on one end and then we had to put the wooden sill back on to the foundation in order to tack the tarp down on the other end. We made it through two nights of heavy rain and 20-30 mph winds just fine Fri. & Sat. night, though we were bumming out on Sat. afternoon because it didn't rain for most of the day and we could have been working - but we didn't want to open up the tarp and then have to tack it all back down again. So we spent the day shopping for portico lighting & checking out appliances at Yale Electric and ordering lumber for the sunroom/closet build-up.

Sealed up for Hannah.

What a ham! [click for larger image]

We have a new resident in the garden. This guy has been spotted several times feasting on aphids and the like. He is a ham for the camera and turns his head to face the lens almost every time. One of the next door neighbors sees him regularly too so maybe there is more than one. It's nice to see the mantis making a comeback. Like the ladybug, praying mantis in the garden is a very good thing!

We ran into a bit of a setback with the foundation work. Turns out the top two cinder blocks on each inside corner of the sunroom foundation were both cracked. And of course those two points are where much of the load from the 2nd floor will be transmitted because we're opening up walls and installing various beams - so we can't have any cracks there. The two cracked cinder blocks were chipped out, and in the process one of the adjacent blocks came loose and so was pulled out. After filling in the voids of the loose cinder block and the blocks below, it will be mortared back into place. But the two cinder blocks that were cracked can't be replaced easily because they both had notches cut into them in order to fit an existing beam that is holding up the floor between the sun room and the living & dining rooms, which is probably why they cracked in the first place. Anyway, we decided to jack up the beam and build forms in order to pour solid concrete into each corner where the cinder blocks were.

Rain schmain! Have tarp, will work.

So that meant research needed to be done on what type of concrete we needed to use, what strength, how to mix it, how long it will take to cure. Sigh... A few days passed. Anyway, looks like we're back on track now and we've filled in all voids and placed J-bolts to tie the new sill into the foundation. Forms will be built tomorrow and we should be pouring in the next couple of days. With any luck we'll be building the new sunroom at some point next week. But we are having trouble finding 4"x8" pressure treated stock for the new sill, which is the size we had to begin with. It seems most places stock only 4"x6" or 2"x8" pressure treated. We can make a different size work, but it would be nice (not to mention easier) to be uniform with the rest of the house.

Detail of one of the problem corners where the existing cinder block was cracked. We filled up the voids below and added rebar. We'll build a form around this space and fill it with concrete. The end of the beam that needs to be carried by the corners is in the upper right.

Voids in foundation filled & J-bolts placed.

Rain barrel at work.

My Mom gave me a gift certificate to Gardener's Supply for Christmas and I finally used it toward a couple of 75 gallon rain barrels. Thanks Mom!!! I'll be using rain water to water the garden from now on. Cliff set the first one up and it filled up with the first rain storm and we've had a few since then. I set the 2nd one up the other day and we got some rain last night. I think it's about half full. It's amazing how quickly they fill up. Wish I had remembered about the gift certificate before all the rain we had in August! It would have saved a lot on the water bill. I think I'll get a couple more next spring so we'll have 2 barrels to water the front yard and 2 for the back.