one more color choice and maybe a decision

 Blue Smoke

The three above only have one coat of stain on them.  The two on the right in the picture below have two coats. 

Martin has decided that his color is a possibility.

 Weathered Barnboard

The three above only have one coat. The two below have two coats.

I am not enamored with this color.

 This is our new color possibility.

Cape Cod Gray

It doesn't look exceptionally gray to me.

The three above have one coat. The two on the right below have two coats.

Martin and I agree that this is a color we both can live with.

 Birch White

The two above have two coats and the three below have one.

Martin really doesn't like this color. I really like it, but as long as we can agree on one of the colors, I am okay not having this color.

what color?

Martin and I need to decide on a stain color for an tigin. He needs to weather-proof the wood as he is renovating his new workshop (aka old barn). 

We are having a terrible time agreeing on color schemes.

We managed to narrow our choices down to these three (we think).

Would love to know your opinion

Blue Smoke

White Birch

Weathered Barnboard

retaining walls done

The last (east) retaining wall in the basement is complete. No more hauling buckets of sand out of the basement to mix concrete and cement. No more hauling buckets of concrete and cement into the basement.

We'll haul the cement mixer into the basement for mixing concrete for the slab.

so close

The retaining walls in the basement are almost finished. We have spent the month of August (and it has been a beautiful month) in the basement working on the cement block walls.

 The west retaining wall is completed, insulated, and back filled with sand. Martin has also built a cement block post to support the center beam.

 The retaining wall on the north east side of the house is at its fullest height. Today, Martin finished insulating it.

 To be able to dig out the sand below the center support wall, Martin had to use a come-along to tie the foundation (rock below it also) to the center beam about so it is temporarily supporting itself.

 The southeast retaining wall is completed and insulated. The picture above only shows it half finished.

 Martin is hoping to frame in the footer and pour the foundation tomorrow for the center section of the east wall. The south section of the east retaining wall is the depth of a cement block further into the basement because of how the wall was built on the south side of the house to accommodate the bulkhead stairs. Martin will have to finagle the walls to make them meet and to provide support for the center beam wall.

regrading, a long process

There is reasonably decent topsoil where the driveway is going to go. (As decent as topsoil at an tigin can get) The topsoil is in short supply in other areas. One of my jobs, when I'm not mixing mortar, or concrete, or shoveling sand, or..... is to move topsoil.

I dig it out, load it into a wheelbarrow, and move it to its final destination.

 Before the new topsoil gets dumped, the area topsoil and subsoil are dug out and moved.  Then buckets of sand (hauled from the basement) are dumped into the resulting hole until the grade is much higher than it started out. 

 Martin gets to tamp and roll the sand. Next I get to shovel the subsoil back on top of the sand. After it is tamped and rolled, the new and original topsoil get spread on it.

As you can see, the entire side yard needs to be higher.  It looks like my summer and fall are going to be filled with wheelbarrows of topsoil, subsoil, and sand.

half pint mason tender

Martin got a cement mixer. After spending some time refurbishing it so it works better.

Then I had the pleasure of being the one to use it.

A mason tender is supposed to do the prep work so the mason can just keep on working. Unfortunately, I am so small that I can't lift the 94 pound bag of Portland cement or the buckets of gravel and sand that need to go into the cement mixer. Martin had to prep the materials for me (half buckets and a way to measure the Portland cement) so that I could actually use the cement mixer.

Once the concrete was made, Martin dumped it into a tub, shoveled it into buckets, and hauled it into the basement to pour the footers.

 At some point, we (meaning Martin) will be hauling the cement mixer into the basement so we can use it to mix concrete for the slab. Lots to do before we get that far.

bucket by bucket

We started with no basement. One of our neighbors helped dig out most of the current basement with his back hoe. Unfortunately he couldn't get the whole basement dug, so we are left finishing it off bucket by bucket. It doesn't seem like we are making much progress at this point, but the basement work is just one small step forward at a time.

We start with a section of the basement that has too much sand still. I fill buckets and Martin hauls them up the basement stairs and empties them where we are raising the grade around the house. 

 Once we get enough sand removed to allow Martin to pour a footer, we need to build a temporary sandbag wall to hold back the sand that is still there.

 Then we (meaning Martin) dig out a trench and put in a form for the footer.

Then we mix up a bunch of concrete and fill the form.  Hauling the buckets of concrete down into the basement and bring sand back up to be mixed in the concrete.

Once the footer has set up, we lay 3 courses of block and put solid insulation in behind it.

Then the sandbags get rescued (to be used for the next section).  As we dig out the next section, we dump buckets of sand behind the new wall to back fill.

 Then the last 3 courses of block get laid and insulated with more sand to back fill behind the wall.

We are trying not to haul too much sand up and out of the basement. Not only is it a slow tedious and physically exhausting job, but we need to have enough sand to back fill behind all of the retaining walls. One of the benefits of having so much sand is that we can use it when we make concrete and mortar mix for laying block. The biggest disadvantage is that we frequently have cave-ins. Remember those golden childhood days on the beach making sand castles. Dry sand just doesn't work well for building.

grading is coming along

The regrading of the front lawn is nearly done.  The area closest to the house will have pavers for a path from the driveway to the front porch and continuing to the bulkhead doors.

basement retaining wall, west side

I spent a couple of days digging sand so Martin would have access to the correct floor level to be able to pour a footer for the retaining wall we need to put in.

Because the ground is sand, we couldn't jack up the house and dig the foundation to the full basement depth. We need to step back, build a retaining wall, and then pour a slab.

 After I dug down to the right depth and dug out the length of half of the retaining wall, Martin decided that he needed more room to work in the basement.  He spent a couple of days hauling sand out of the basement in buckets.

 He got the footer poured. Then I had the pleasure of being a mason tender again. Half of the west side retaining wall is in. 

 It looks like I'll be digging in the basement again, so footers can be poured for the rest of the wall.

In the mean time, Martin has put hard insulation behind the finished retaining wall. Eventually we will back fill to bring the sand up to the bottom of the foundation. For now though, this corner needs to be fairly open because our water pipe and electrical lines are coming in here.