Day 26 - A Little of This & That

Some days there isn't much to look at after we have spent the day at the house working.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Jason was busy adding in fill around the garage piles so they can start working on the grade beam on Monday.  Remember I said I was going to show you photos of the piles with the welded on pieces?  Well, these are the pieces that go on the garage piles, tying the piles into the concrete.

These are the pieces that go on the deck piles, allowing a beam to sit on the top of the piles.

As I said, Jason was adding clay around each of the garage piles to raise the level as it is currently a bit too low.  He did that for a lot of the day.

Mr.B was busy cutting all the headers and the trimmers for the second-storey windows.  If all goes according to plan, we should start framing those walls Monday.

I spent the afternoon framing the last 2 interior walls on the main floor - the walls for the laundry room and Jason's bathroom.  Once again, I had a helper for a while.  We had to remove the interior bracing first and he was quite happy to help remove the nails.

Sometimes we get a little too consumed with house-building and don't take enough time to play with the kids.  Yesterday we stopped at lunch and mid-afternoon to play some badminton with the 3 older kids.  I am trying to find things for them to do at the country to keep them entertained.  Pepe found this badminton/volleyball set here in the garage that we had bought a while ago so we brought it along and set it up.  They/we have had fun playing with it.  Right now we are in the process of shocking the well to kill the little bacteria in it that can make stomachs upset if you drink the water - once that is done, we will set up the pool there for them as well.  That way, they have lots to do when we are working hard.  And just in time for the hot and sunny week coming up.

Then, yesterday afternoon, the 2 littlest girls went to Nana & Papa's place (my parents) for a sleepover and the 3 older kids went to Grandma & Grandpa's place (Jay's parents) for a sleepover so Jay and I went on a date!  We got home too late to write a blog update so I apologize to those of you waiting with baited breath for the latest account of our house-building adventure!  Tonight might be a late one as well as we have my niece's graduation party to attend and may get home late but I promise, you will survive!