Don't Do This For Fun!!!

Ok, so this is what it looks like outside right now. We've cut down a couple trees, ripped out the flowerbeds, or should I say thorn beds! and have torn out the drivway. We've killed the grass both front & back and made the place look horrible! I'm sure the neighbors love us now! Jer has the sprinklers working in the front so on Thurs & Friday the driveway is getting cleaned up & new sod is being laid & possibly the flowerbeds will be put in. Hopefully that will make the place start to look a little better.

The basement was pretty much just one big room with a couple of small windows you couldn't even crawl through, you can see it in the top right side of the pic on the right down below. On one side of the stairs there was a spot for the washer & dryer & on the other was just a long empty space. So we decided to add a bedroom down there, make a 'real' laundry room & also a family room, but in order to have a bedroom down stairs we had to have windows that you could crawl out if there were a fire. So first, we had to dig some holes for the window wells that were about 3 1/2 feet deep & 5 1/2 feet wide. So we got out our shovels & started...yes even I did this part!!! Then we rented a cement saw & cut the cinder blocks, we found this goes ALOT faster with 2 people as the saw is needing to be wet down about every inch. After that, we grabbed the sledge hammer, which is alot heavier than it looks if you have never used one, & bashed out the cut stuff just to find rebar??? in the wall!!! AGH!!!! We learned a lot of things this day! Did you know that a saws-all can cut through rebar??? We didn't but now we do! I guess that's why they call it a saws-all!
This last Sat we drilled all the holes in the framing to bolt the walls to the cement walls, that was fun, but now my shoulders are sore. Jer is going over there after school today to put all the bolts in...oh ya, did I tell you all that Jer is doing most of this after he teaches all day!!! Crazy I know...

My Favorite part so far has been bashing out the
wall to put in these doors. If you need a great
stress reliever you should find a wall to break down. It was great!!!

Well I'll update you on the progress next week. We are hoping to get the framing inspection done tomorrow and then sheetrock & texture early next week. Which hopefully while we have guys inside doing that we can get the outside painted at the same time! Well see...Jer is thinking about doing the sheetrock himself...