This weekend there was a bunch of work accomplished. We have all the floor joists hung, the stair tread foot is blocked out, the root cellar floor has a tarp and nice sand and the sub floor is starting to be secured. We have used our first piece of plywood. Jeff Keogh, Jackie Campbell and someone else from the City came by to check out the anchor bolts and joists. Jackie was very interested in our ‘deep crawlspace’.

East side joists

South side joists

East side subfloor

South side subfloor

This past weekend we entered a new and exciting phase to our project, the framing phase. We have been blessed to be helped by a former Marine that is friends with my dad. Clay (pictured below) is a man of all professions it seems and has been a framer in the past. He is currently going to school to become a Nurse Practitioner and so the weekend work fits his schedule nicely. Putting down the mudsill

Originally uploaded by MATT THEULE FAMILY at 8 Aug ’06, 9.41pm PDT PST.

More mudsill

Originally uploaded by MATT THEULE FAMILY at 8 Aug ’06, 9.41pm PDT PST.

Office floor joists

Originally uploaded by MATT THEULE FAMILY at 8 Aug ’06, 9.41pm PDT PST.

This weekend we dug out the crawlspace for the office addition (10 x 10 ft). We thought a small backhoe would speed the job along. Suncoast rental had 1 backhoe available.

Pop spent the weekend driving and operating the backhoe.

Pop Driving The Backhoe

Because it was so big, the bucket wouldn’t fit where we had originally placed the dug out dirt. So we ended up shoveling dirt by hand. The next round we moved the backhoe back and forth every scoop so that we could use the bucket. We took 2 full truck loads to Foothill Nursery and then the local nursery (9th street, decided they could take the last full buckets.

Shoveling Dirt

I did get to drive it for a little while. It sure beats slinging a shovel.

Bub Driving Backhoe