Progress!

We're finally seeing action on the construction of the addition. Thursday the 17th of Sept. 2008 we finally got the permit. The building inspector should be out here in about an hour, and a couple guys are laying re-bar as I write. Sixteen inches of cement should be nestling happily in the foundation trench and holes this afternoon or tomorrow morning. The plan is to pour the floor of the garage at the same time and begin remodeling that area of the house by the end of the week. Mario says they'll have the framing in the garage done by Friday. I'll believe it when I see it. Since I wrote that, the rather taciturn building inspector stopped by, looked around, and handed Mario his permission slip. The guys have planted re-bar stakes in the garage floor, and maybe we'll see actual construction before the day is out! Martin pointed out that there's likely to be some leftover cement, so I dug and otherwise cleared away a 4×22 foot stretch in front of the new shed (which the building inspector ignored, by the way, fortunately. I put it in without a permit.), so we can pour an apron in front if there's enough cement left over. [evening update: there wasn't enough. In fact they had to bring in another truck for one more yard of the stuff. I did glean a bucketful from that second load and planted a tetherball pole for the kids. Sharpcast is getting out of the picture business, so I'm moving all my photos to Flickr and Picasa. This link, http://picasaweb.google.com/rogers.george should take you to the site where you can keep up to date on the construction. Beware—there are a lot of pictures, and I'll put up more. They're not all artistic, either, but there's a nice shot of a toad in the collection. Feel free to stop by our place anytime to have a look at the real thing. Here are a couple pics of the trench; immediately after the rain (after I pumped out the water), and another stretch of the trench after I shoveled it clean (You can tell the water line by the change in color on the side of the trench), then with the re-rod in place. The cement goes to the height of the vertical rods, 16 inches. The final picture shows the guys leveling the cement, but you probably figured that out yourself.