Garden Taking Shape

Maybe garden is not quite the right description but the mounds have been flattened so it takes less imagination to believe it will one day be a garden.

Chicken heaven to be

The basement is starting to be hidden

Basement terrace taking shape.

With all the basement walls up we produced a design for the retaining walls for the basement terrace. It is frightening how thick walls need to get for 2.8 metres high.

Waterproofing again

A new type of waterproofing,  first you paint on the glue (richard) wait for it to go black then hang it like wallpaper. Then it gets messy with a gluppy putty to seal all the joints.

My life in a hole

I was working on the waterproofing when I wondered what the noise was, looked round the corner, inches from the bucket.  We have spent a lot of time in the bottom of the hole behind the basement walls worryning about every detail of the waterproofing. It is odd to think this will all be filled in behind a hopefully dry basement a distant memory.

Walls start to go up

Arrived onsite expecting to see one brickies and be able to set out the wall positions. Found two brickies one builder and loads of blocks already laid out so we could not do the measurements. Spent some time head scratching to work out the exact block layout and then measuring the walls yet again. It is amsing how many details need to be worked out that are not covered in the drawings.


The waterproofing arrived mid morning so Rob and Susan set to work putting it up on the wall before the rain came. Ended up with a full head of waterproofing clay. Great preparation for the hairdresser in the afternoon, but at least I missed the rain, Richard was not so lucky.


When I got back in the afternoon I was surprised to see wall already going up.

First Concrete Pour

The big day arrived, our first concrete pour. It was great to see the shape appearing and real progress.

Waterproofing and Steel

Arrived on site expecting to finish the waterproffing and hopefully all the steel, this was changed within minutes to concrete due to go down on Tuesday. So Susan spent the morning finishing putting down the carpet.

Most of the morning was taken up sorting out block delivery before putting in the steel. This was rather a cats cradle and took the rest of the day, all day Saturday and then lots of hours from Mick over the Sunday and bank holiday Monday.

Waterproofing going down

The plan was to be pouring concrete on Friday. But that would mean getting all the waterproofing and steels in place by the end of today. That plan quickly got changed with concrete booked for Saturday, still going to be a challange. By the end of the day the base was layed out and the waterproofing partially laid out.

Going down

Swimming Pool

It rained hard all day, hardly ideal conditions for digging out a basement, nice swimming pool though

Ooops

When digging away for last retaining panel the hedge fell in, quick rebuild and repeat.

Retaining wall going in

The retaining wall for the hedge is going in, a few large steels and some concrete panels. The site looks like a monster mole has been going mad.

Big Digger

Monday afternoon a big digger (Duncan said it was a toy digger compared to his) arrived onsite and scraped off lots of soil on Tuesday ready to start digging.

The big day, start on site

Progress not too exciting but we do now have a dump truck onsite.