Bog Juice

The forms are off! That was quick, huh? I visited the house late last night after working late. Mike was down in the basement... hey, I can actually call it a basement. Pretty freakin' smurf.

Anyhoo, he was smoothing out and distributing sand for the floor that we still haven't contracted yet. We talked for a bit about our final design of the basement, things like rooms, boilers, stairs, doors from indoor to out, trap doors from upstairs to down, and windows. Turns out that a couple of the window holes are below grade. Mike is very against window wells, so we may either block them up, put in plain 'ol glass instead of windows, or grade the backyard a little differently. There's still time to decide.

In the meantime, Mike thinks that we have to tar the walls. That makes no sense to me. I would have thought that would be included in our basement job. I asked him to call Ernie regarding that and the windows. Apparantly, we also have to insulate the exterior walls - outside between the dirt and the concrete.. didn't know that either. All I hear is cha-ching cha-ching. So, if we have to tar the walls and insulate ourselves - that's our goal for this weekend.

Then we have to find out when we can backfill. Then Mike has to make friends with the Andersons and see if we can put excess fill in our hole of a backyard. I hope we can reach an agreement about that because boy... it would just be awesome for a lot of reasons.

Oh, and did I mention we have to figure out how to set the house down level? Yes, they poured the basement level - but the trouble is - the house is NOT level. So, if we just plop it down on the foundation, all our walls will crack, doors won't close, etc. All because all those things weren't built level. The house needs to be shimmed. But how? That's a question Mike needs to ask Bob Hayden.

So, in summary, Mike needs to make some phone calls. And me? I'll just worry about paying the bills right now. Paying the bills and getting rid of the cottage cheese of my thighs. Any suggestions for high-effectiveness workouts?