finally some shade - Memorial Day weekend

The panel deck form work for the basement ceilings/garage and house floors goes in [mostly]DAY 1 SATURDAY - sawing the patterns into the concrete floor in the basement bedroom.
Measuring it up.
The saw - with diamond tipped blade.
The saw couldn't quite get to the edges - needed an angle grinder with no guard and a diamond tipped blade - at 10000 rpm you can bet I was concentrating.
SUNDAY
Litterbugs - styrofam that needed to be removed for the basement ceiling slab.
First piece of the ceiling formwork
The first panel-deck pieces go in
Temporary shoring walls go in
More panel deck goes up





Bluejay
Plywood to protect the bedroom floor
MONDAY
Spring wildflowers on our place

Aquilegia formosa

Western columbine (Buttercup family)

Iris tenax

Sisyrinchium angustifolium Narrowleaf blue-eyed grass (Iris family) Sidalcea sp - mallows



Panel deck trapeze
Getting there
More goes into place over the laundry
Discussing the next bit
A [few] days work
WEDNESDAY - a mornings work for me

An irridescense of irises - on a big day

Iridescent irises invoking intimations of incomparably inviting summer daysGetting prepared in the frost of a clear late spring morning - just after 6:30 am.
Yet another concrete pump.
All that work to set the radiant floor tubing starts to disappear.
Getting it to grade.
More concrete.
Starting to smooth it out.
Into the middle room, covering the radiant artwork.
Fillin' up the garage basement,




Smoothing it out.
The extra concrete into some extra formwork - creating stepping stones and test squares for trying out different concrete stains.

Smoothing - with big floater kneepads.
Hand prints - ours
His helicopter won't fly.
Sawing the expansion joints.

Finished - just wetting it down to even out the cure.

Another job - cleaning the oxidized styrofoam so the waterproofing membrane will stick.
Our ever present friends on hot days - big turkey vultures.
First time we've seen that corner since mid-December thanks to E's hard and heavy shovelwork.

Random stuff

Pulling broken bolts from some other recycled timbers so they can be milled to size - these are I think 17 x 3 1/2 "

We took some plastic off of the back wall to see what needs to be done to finally resolve the cave-in mess and apparently disturbed this cicada that immediately stepped out of its shell and pumped up its wings.
The remaining mess...

From the top looking down.
Still lots of shovel work to go before we can reset the geocloth and get this backfilled - after the basement ceiling/main floor is put in.

Completely awesome

I have seen the little vortices behind the wave in other shots so the BBC guy isn't right about the first time they've been seen - but the super slow mo is great and you can forgive his enthusiasm. If you've got the bandwidth click on HD and watch it full screen.



And then go to the other blog to see jello in super slo-mo HD.

Milling and [not] baking

Big step - turning some of the recycled 14 x 8 inch (36 x 20 cm) warehouse timbers into "new" 8 3/4 x 6 inch (22.3 x 15 cm) posts. Done nearby & luckily a very nice afternoon.E striding in to action.
Checking the sizes - and for knots and nails and where to cut to get the best out of the wood.
Decision made
Another one.

The old and the new ---
Seem to have lost something - no just shimming it so it's square !
Old and new mark II
Almost done, second last one on the saw.

More tube time

Formwork boards for the slabRetrieved out recycled timbers from our friend's shed Saturday a.m. Quite the test for the new truck.
Grand central station - one more change. It now has a manifold and a pressure gauge attached - and passed the pressure test and inspection.
Radiant floor artwork - soon to be covered.
Took a bunch of these so we know where the tubes are under the slab in relation to things like plumbing.
The basement bedroom tubes finished.
These "thermal breaks - vertical foam insulation every where the slab would meet the outdoors, to keep the radiant heat where we want it.
Same between the hosue basement and garage basement, but more tricky with the tubes coming through.
Ready to go ! Need just to wait for a couple of sunny days to get the concreting done.

Getting tubed

Radiant floor heating tubes that is...Basement - grand central station - I guess the distribution manifold will be here.Garage basement

South room
More tubing arrives - E putting on a rigid 90 degree elbow - the black things lower left.

On the grid...

Electricity arrives on site.

Thanks to Josh Storer, of Barefoot Radiant Heating Corvallis OR, for the pictures.

Insulation days

Even more [extruded] styrofoam - underslab insulation so the heat from the radiant floor heating goes up and not down into the earth. Over the poly vapor barrier.The tricky room before the work.
Poly in the south room.
Insulation going over the plastic.

Saturday: sun interspersed with gully-raker downpours.
Sunday: spring irises.
Plastic going down in the tricky center room.

Cutting styrofoam.

Rock time again...

Rock time again - with the amazing rock shooting conveyor truckBetter than shovels and wheelbarrows
First lift in the center room - the plate compactor is back again - obscenely heavy - but i guess it needs to be.
Some (a lot of) shoveling and raking needed


Garage basement waiting for more
Finished level in the center room
Garage basement getting fullDone and compacted in the evening after the rain and hail went through
Bit of a change from this...
Checking the plumbing for leaks.