Hammers? I Thought We Were Using a Nail Gun!

Alright...I haven't put anything up here in awhile...so I'm due...I know...I'm sorry.

A quick update on the week. Tuesday and Wednesday Dad and I put drain tile in next to the footings. I thought we were through pounding those stupids stakes into the ground...but I was wrong. We had to use the stakes to keep the drain tile in place. So that wore us out a bit, considering it was 90 some degrees outside those days!

Thursday and Friday our excavator spread the pea gravel both inside and outside of the footings.

Friday afternoon our lumber was delivered for the basement walls. For those of you that do not know, we are putting in a wood basement. It consists of 2 x 8 grade 60 treated lumber. Everything is built exactly the same way a normal stud wall would be. There is a special sealer that you have to soak the ends of the lumber into, and the bottoms of the walls need stainless nails, but other than that it's the same.

Friday night Grandpa, my cousin Jenni, and her husband Dave came out to visit and check out the progress. Since Dave has never seen a wood basement he offered to come help on Saturday. Grandpa thought that would be a good idea and decided he would come out too. Jenni stayed home with Madonna so she wasn't home alone all day. Thank you Jenni! I know Grandpa appreciates being able to come out and help without worrying about Madonna all day.

Saturday morning we finished laying out the basement and then Dad started cutting plates for the walls. Unfortunately there wasn't much for Grandpa and Dave to do. Grandpa helped sort out the straight 2 x 8s and Dave hauled lumber and worked the generator for Dad. Dave also helped me haul the air compressor from the basement of Mom and Dad's house to the van. I made multiple trips to Menards, Home Depot and Lowes. One of those trips was to ALL THREE STORES! I'm sure there will be many more trips as the house progresses.

Saturday afternoon, after Grandpa and Dave left, Dad and I decided to fire up the air compressor and start building some walls. Was I excited! Well, the electrical plug on the generator and the compressor didn't match. So that was a trip to Home Depot to get the mating connectors and some cord to make an adapter. Two trips later, with the adapter wired up, we found out the generator won't run Dad's compressor. Shoot...no walls on Saturday.

Sunday morning I went up to borrow Grandpa's smaller air compressor. We got ready to fire it up and found out that it won't go above 20 psi. We found that it did the same thing at home, so Dad is going to look at the regulator and pressure gauge. So...hopefully Dad can fix Grandpa's compressor so it will work with the generator.

Sunday was pretty boring for me since there wasn't much to do with Dad laying out the walls. That was real builder stuff. :) So I ran the generator and napped in the lawn chair. Later in the day though we decided to build some walls the old fashioned way...with a hammer and nails. I was amazed Dad actually expected me to use the hammer he bought me for Christmas! Just kidding...I was expecting it at some point. I found that I wasn't too good at pounding the stainless nails in the bottom of the walls. I kept bending the stupid things. Dad said you just have to hit them with authority...well when I do that they bend in two and then they are useless! So Dad did the bottoms of the walls while I did the tops. Dad is also much speedier than I am...he can finish at least 3 studs, if not 4, to my 1 stud. I guess I have some work to do. We finished two entire walls. Ok...there are lots more to go, but it's a start!

I am in North Carolina for work this week. So Dad is on his own to build walls and make some progress. I look forward to seeing what will be finished when I return on Friday. I am disappointed that I won't be there for it though. That being said, I won't have anything new for you guys until the weekend...so stay tuned!