drywall and dirt

Ok so we got back from Kentucky, and Dave started putting screws in the drywall. Lots of 'em.

And we spent yesterday filling in nail holes, and taping the joints, and doing the same old drywall mudding that you gotta do to make your walls smooth.

But let's go back to the dirt situation, from the neighbor's pond, that I ended my last post with.

I am not going to say I was happy when I first saw this....

When I was told we were going to get the dirt, and it would be a good thing so we could raise the front yard to the level it is supposed to be, I was ok with it.

But I had no idea it was this much dirt! And when I first saw it I was snapping pics with my phone and sending them to Dave at work.....WTH!!!!

This is where the dump truck drove up into our yard. This is an easy fix.

But all this.....not so easy.

I'm pretending it isn't there for now.

Dave did have to fix the gutters right away though.

Since the yard level was raised, the gutters were too low, and the tube thing that the water would run through was buried.

And then there was the issue of tearing the osb off of the porch to fill underneath it with dirt....to raise the level.

This was the area across from the bee yard. It had a huge slope to it and was very hard to mow.

But this is what the area looks like now! I'm thinking of moving my bees to it and we've decided to plant it in white clover.

We used to have a ladder leaning against the porch. We had to climb the ladder to get on the porch. Not anymore! Now we can just step up on the porch...

If it had a floor that we could step up on!

Cindy

Insulation, drywall, dirt, and a craft room!

I've got a mess on my hands! In between hanging insulation and drywall, I've been trying to get some order to a craft room. I've collected crafty stuff for years, as you can tell.



And now that the insulation is finished...

we're hanging drywall.

And it's very close to being done.

The hanging part that is. We still have to do a lot of mudding and taping and sanding...UGH.

In the meantime, our neighbor is having a HUGE pond dug.

Guess where all the dirt is going?

Yup....our place.

More on that later.

Cindy

Roof update and some settling - now

See our roofer on the ladder?

He's putting on the finishing touches.

That's right folks - he's done with the roof! And I like the color. It's some sort of dimensional slate color.

The company that sold us the shingles told us that the manufacturer of these shingles use a talcum type powder to make them. They said the white streaks could be excess powder, and will hopefully lessen after some rain. The pic on the left is the original. The pic on the right is after the rains we had this weekend.

The streaks are still there, but they are lighter.

I don't think they look as bad. The rep is still going to come out and have a look, just in case, but lets just hope they disappear over the winter months.

Now these two photos are right up next to the house. When we had all of the rain this weekend, the disturbed ground around the house settled. Not good. We are going to have to get some dirt and fill that in. We had tons of dirt that we smoothed out, and now we need dirt!

Cindy

Dirt/Basement framing/septic fingers-Now

Mom & Dad came out one day last week. I know she is thinking....

who is going to clean this mess up?

This is a huge pile of dirt in the front yard.

It looks like the basement is going to stick way up out of the ground.

I was very nervous about the way it was going to look from the street.

We just need to relax with it all. They fixed it. That's why they had those piles of dirt.
Basement framing

This will be a bathroom/laundry room.

I took this pic standing on top of the basement roof (or main floor) looking into the basement.
Those are the I-Joists they were carrying last week.

This is going to be my food pantry/root cellar.

Looking from the basement out through the I-Joists

Stairs from the basement to the main level.

This is part of the "fingers" to the septic system. There are five fingers, which takes up a lot of room and took out a lot of trees. Sad about the trees.

He stands on the finger to make sure it is solid on the ground, which has been leveled. Then he covers it with soil. You can only use this type of system if you have good elevation and very well drained soil. We're fortunate, in more ways than one.

Cindy