The past two weekends have been whirlwinds of activity. The weekend prior to Easter we built the foundation wall. This process began with HH and his dad working to finish off the formwork on Friday. My sister, bro in law and Dad were all scheduled for the big concrete pour Saturday morning, which should give us plenty of time to finish up before 21 guests arrived at our house for our two year old's birthday party at 5pm that evening. HH and his dad started at 7:30am, but unfortunately finishing up the formwork took much longer than expected. With our 5:00pm deadline, the trusty heirloom cement mixer was fired up and churning away while forms were still being put together. While we had done a family bedtime trip to the big box store for 10 bags of cement the night before, it turns out that our calculations were way off and our behemoth footings and walls were swallowing concrete mix at an alarming rate! Halfway through the pour, we needed more naavy jack and much more cement - stat. I raced back to the now insanely busy big box store, attempting to get help loading 15 ninety pound bags of cement - funny how nobody at the store wanted to assist me. Eventually, a fork lift operator helped with the loading and I zoomed back home before the half completed wall started to dry out. A rough estimation for 2 yards more naavyjack sent sis off to the landscape supply store in her truck with me following behind hauling my utility trailer. The landscape supply store was a complete zoo and yet every worker recognized me: "your husband called, we are not allowed to load you with anymore naavy!". I guess the home crew decided sis's one yard would be enough (I picked up ice cream bars instead).
HH and his dad had not eaten or drank anything all day, so at some point I forced them to drink some juice. At 4pm the wall was finished being poured and the forms held together as everyone cleaned up for the birthday party. I phoned the rental place explaining that I wouldn't be able to return the concrete vibrator before 4pm closing - she doesn't mind at all since she'll just charge me for Sunday as they are closed on Sunday and I can't return it until Monday. Awesome. Time to make dinner and set the table for the birthday party, although I decide to shower off the concrete dust first. Lesson learned: do not pour concrete until your forms are complete and at least 3/4 of your supplies are on hand. Do not plan a birthday party for 21 people on the same day you plan to mix and pour a concrete foundation wall.
Below you can see our neighbour pitching in to move the cement mixer into position using his ATV.
Below you can see the hub of activity.
Good Friday Demo
The next weekend was the Easter long weekend, and we had plans to pop the forms on the foundation wall, demo the back of the shed, and to pour the floor of the 6 foot x 12 foot area that the foundation wall surrounds (my future potting shed). Before we could start, we were scheduled to help some friends with a few things around their house and were getting a few tools together on Friday morning. The kids were loaded in the car, HH was in the garage, and I was upstairs grabbing a few final things. I heard a crash from the garage and yells of pain from my HH, and I ran down the stairs to see him crumpled up in a pile of garden tools holding his nose as it bled like crazy. Apparently, as he was reaching for a tool over a pile of garden tools, he lost his balance and stepped on the bottom of a rake. The handle of the rake flew upright and broke his nose. Not the start to our reno weekend that we were looking for! After a brief timeout, we headed to our friends' place to do some work until later that afternoon.
HH, his dad, and bro in law popped the forms Friday afternoon and the foundation wall looked great! Sis took the initiative to start demoing the back of the shed while HH and his dad back filled the inside of the foundation wall with every piece of random concrete they could find around the yard (you'd be surprised how many random pieces of concrete were found around the yard from previous pours, like this one:
diy-concrete-retaining-wall-and-patio). The wall of the shed came down easily and we used a tarp as a back wall for that part of the garage for a couple of days.
On Saturday, HH and his dad completed the perimeter drain around the new foundation wall and back filled around the outside of the wall. All was ready to go to pour the floor of the potting shed on Easter Sunday, before a combined Easter dinner/birthday dinner for HH's step-mom. Family members once again converged on our yard to assist with the pour. Despite a confession that the device used to protect the motor on the heirloom concrete mixer was not in place during some time of rain during the week (the device is a bucket), the mixer rumbled into commission once more! Everything was much smother this round - no frantic runs to get supplies and the process was pretty quick. Less than 2 hours of mixing, wheel barrowing, and pouring. It was debateable whether we would need more naavyjack or not, but it turned out we had just the right amount. HH and bro in law screeded the concrete and worked to trowel the concrete to a smooth finish as it started to dry and harden over the next several hours. Then our very curious two-year old boy decided to walk onto the newly troweled concrete pad as HH frantically ran over to extract him from the concrete. A bit more troweling and the small (but deep) footprints disappeared.
It started to sprinkle with rain but a large tarp was put in place before the rain started and the surface stayed perfect. Then disaster struck. The heavens opened up and produced a sudden monsoon! The gutters directly over the concrete slab begin overflowing with buckets of water and gutter debris, which slammed down onto the concrete pad. Swearing and panic ensued, while bro in law got on the roof to clear out the gutters. HH and I started mopping up the water from the concrete pad, but there were now bucket sized holes in the once pristine floor. This was heartbreaking (and a lesson to clean gutters before pouring concrete underneath them). Somehow HH and bro in law managed to work their magic and filled in the large crevices while removing most of the tree debris that had embedded itself into the concrete. We ended up being late for Easter dinner. We returned home at 9:30pm, put the kids to bed and started burnishing the concrete with trowels to try and get back a smooth surface. This was very hard since it had been hours since the concrete had been poured and it was nearly set completely. I lasted about 30 minutes, while HH worked the concrete for another 1.5 hours. The next morning, the floor looked great and we were really happy with it!
Screeding pictured below
pouring the floor
It is a good foundation. There is no going back now.
