House to Home, Volume 12 - Pour the Floor

You guessed it - here's the guest room window view at 7:45 Tuesday morning, November 10th:

 And here's what my second driveway looks like when a concrete crew arrives on the scene:

One car is mine and one belongs to mom, but still.  It was crowded.  We all stood around waiting for the concrete truck to arrive but once it did and they added a bag of what I'm assuming was the mesh fibers into the hopper, it was go time.  All of these pictures were taken between 8:30 and 9:01.

And just like that, we had a floor.  I don't understand how they are able to do it without disturbing the radiant tubing.  All concentration was focused on the concrete and I'm not convinced the tubes all stayed where they were supposed to, but I need to have faith that these guys know what they are doing.  The slab is my actual floor so I guess I will find out if there was a problem when I find cold spots while walking barefoot in my garage, right?

While Bryan, my mom and I were watching them set up, mom told us about the concrete situation when she and my dad built their first house in Killington.  I asked her to write down the details, so here's a little something something from today's guest blogger:

In 1967, Maureen and Charlie and Ken and I (and baby Ann Marie) spent a week in Vermont, staying at Charlie's parents' house in Northfield to start building a chalet on a lot we bought in Killington.  It was sometime in the summer.

First, Truman (he was about 16 years old) dug nine holes for the Sonotubes, then we had to fill them with concrete. He got the backhoe stuck between two trees, and I don't remember how that was resolved.

So, to mix the concrete we emptied a bag of Sakrete mix on a sheet of plywood, poured on water that Maureen and I carried up from the stream (yes, the stream was DOWN the hill) in five gallon buckets, and mixed it with garden hoes, then shoveled it into each Sonotube. Nine of them!

I don't remember much after that. We had no power, and no ladder. Dad made a ladder out of 2x4's -- it was heavy! We also found out that Charlie was afraid of heights.

FYI, "baby Ann Marie" is my older sister. My dad had never built a house before and was learning by reading a "How To" book. He would read a chapter, build that part, then read the next chapter. Must have worked because a couple years later they did it again, and my mom still lives in the second house.

I'm glad I didn't have to haul water for my construction project - spoiler alert, we will have other issues with water soon enough. I left for work a little after 9am but the guy with the vibrating screed was there for a good part of the day. Interesting tidbit: they use these concrete crimp anchors to nail boards across all the door openings to contain the concrete while it cures:

I didn't dare walk on it after work, but the next day StanLee tested it out. He and I were planning a trip down to Camp Killington for the weekend, leaving home on Saturday morning, but I woke up Friday to almost zero water pressure so we headed to Killington right from work that afternoon.  Roxie came home with us on Sunday for a week of normalcy - I didn't want her to think I had abandoned her. This whole construction project is happening in fits and starts, and since the entire crew needed to be at a different job site for a week it was another "hurry up and wait" period. We got home on Sunday the 15th only to find even worse water pressure - a tiny trickle in the kitchen sink and zero upstairs in the bathroom - so that meant a trip to Big Lots for several gallons of water so I could at least flush the toilet, and my first experience with dry shampoo. On the plus side, November 15th was Roxie's debut on her new foyer floor:

I think she likes it.