While the cement was being poured and finished and Steven was framing the platform for the door, I primed the back of the house – at least as far as I could reach with my ladder. Not finished but a great improvement! Hope the neighbors are pleased!
Family Concrete Services came today and poured our garage floor. They were great – great price, great timing, great results. Thanks Family Concrete Services! We have a garage floor and start building in 1 week.
One of three large piles of branches left from earlier tree trimming.
Three large piles of branches yielded one large pile of wood chips.
The wood chips were hauled to the back of the house and placed around the hostas and ferns which have taken quite a beating from all the tree trimming.
We learned that we couldn’t use the siding on the garage that we had planned. It has to match the first floor of the house in design and color, so our vertical siding can’t be used. Back to the drawing board. We either take off all the siding on the first floor and replace it or find 3″ horizontal siding for the garage.
On a trip to our local Menards, we found good quality siding 8″ wide 16′ long. Steven will rip it to 4″. If we overlap it 1″, we will have 3″ horizontal siding we can paint to match the house. A lot of work to rip it but we won’t have to remove the siding on the house and can keep the vintage 1900 look.
We had our inspection for the garage cement forms. Only thing we needed to do was add blocking to raise the wire mesh so cement could flow underneath.
Now to find a cement contractor who can pour in the next week or two. Our first bid was $5500 and could be done in two weeks. I was told the cement alone would be $3000. The second bid was $2140 – $1000 for the cement and $1240 for labor! It could be done this week! We are waiting on a possible third bid. It pays to get more than one bid! Our third bid was $4000. The $2240 bid sounds really good. They used 6000 psi and air entrainment cement.
We ordered 5 cubic yards of coarse sand – that equals 7 tons. Well, it was too much for the garage and created a lot of extra work but – we also were able to use the extra for a patio in the corner by the kitchen and bathroom and also for leveling the driveway for the pavers.
The stairway is dark oak with carved bannisters. The floor under the stairs was not supported. An opening to the basement had been cut through the floor joists. A two x four wall had been constructed to support the joists but it was not sufficient so there were gaps between the bottom of the banisters and the steps. We purchased floor jacks and slowly raised the joists to a higher position. We must now replace the jacks with wooden supports.
