STANDING TALL

Like a boy on Christmas morning, I jumped out of bed early and was ready for the day!  6am!  Aw, man!!  None of friends were to be over until after 10!  I can't wait!  I can't wait!  Because today is the day!  The day I have been waiting close to a year and a half for.  The day I lower my old beauty onto her new foundation, straighten her old bones and have her standing tall once again!

Waiting to be taken off the box!

I try to slow myself down.  I make a hearty breakfast, drink 4 cups of coffee and pace around the yard going over the plan about 10 more times in my head as to how I'm gonna make this work.  You see, not only do did I need to lift the structure up off its shoring box, but the walls need to be given a good push and pull in order to straighten out and the entire structure needs a strong nudge to shift it about 4 inches counter clock wise so it sits squarely on its foundation.  Over the years this old girl kept settling, shifting and twisting herself to the northwest.  When I cut her off her old foundation there was such an amazing series of chiropractic "pops" as each stud and rafter released years of stress.  I swear I heard her give a big sigh of relief.  She has had a year and a half of traction to give those old bones a rest.  Today she starts rehabilitation to stand up straight on her own feet again.

My help arrives!  My friends Anthony and of course Keith.  I can always count on Keith!  My friend Paul provided later back up. I gather them in the backyard and in great excitement I laid out my plan.  It involves a couple of jacks and some 4x4 posts and carefully coordinated lifting and pushing and lowering.  After I enthusiastically explained this rather easy process I turned to see the concerned looks in my friends faces.

Anthony (in red) and Keith seem a bit uneasy of my plan.
Larger jack in position

"Really!  It's a piece of cake!"  I assured.  However, they were not as easily convinced as I was.  I was ready to dive into it!  I had waited all morning!  But, I had to let them wrap their heads around it and talk it through.  I guess I had to respect that.  Give them some time to figure it out with me.  We're all in our 40's now and we don't need to put ourselves in any situation that may result in our needing a chiropractor ourselves.  But the coffee was flowing through my veins topped with inpatient excitement.  OK! OK! lets get moving.

Oh, but it's never as easy as you imagine it.  So many little things get in the way.  Especially when the space is filled with a bunch of crap to start with.  So we knew what the first task was.  Empty this baby out. (you think I could have done that while I paced around waiting for everyone to show up.)  I thought many times of getting a temporary storage space for this stuff.  But that would only encourage me to collect more stuff which would not be good for my sanity or my marriage.  (I can't wait to get rid of that tent!)

Anthony preps the sill plates

After that, we finally figured out our assignments and a plan of action.  Anthony was to cut additional sill plates and drilled holes to cover the bolts.

Need a little more bracing

 Keith positioned the jacks at the best lifting points and fit the sill plates into position. I tightened the hold down bolts and did any of the last pick up framing needed to stabilize her walls.  We had four jacks all ready to go.

Second jack in position.

 We then slowly lifted her off the box, just a few inches.    This was probably the most nerve racking part of the process.  Like an industrial balancing act, there she free floated for a while as we positioned all the sill plates. The sill plated gave us a little trouble as each wall more or less had their own height they needed to be lifted to.  Anywhere from 1-1/2" to 5".

Had to use the jack from my truck.

 It took us a number of tries, lifting and lowering to adjust each stud with small cuts or adding some more plates and shimming  to get  everything somewhat level.  Sill plates in place, it was time to bring her down to stable ground.  She gave us little resistance as we pushed and pulled her into place.  She gently touched down and the infamous words rang through my head, "Houston, the Eagle has landed!"

Paul adds a helping hand.

Safely on it's foundation!

This baby isn't going anywhere!

I wish I could say there was a joyous celebration.  However, the days activities had exhausted us.  There was some back slapping and a moment of pride filled gazing upon our accomplishment.  Anthony had a sick child to attend to, Keith was nursing a sprained ankle and I had neglected my family all day.  It was time to clean up and call it another day.  I could go to bed that night finally with the confidence that the garage was finally secured to it's foundation, embedded in the rock, planted firmly on the ground and now standing tall.

Taken a year ago, you can see how the middle of the roof sags and slumps in the lower left.

Now she stands straight.  No more sag!

Brick by Brick

I love to watch those shows on Discovery where they try to figure out the mysteries of ancient building techniques.   How long did it take the ancient Egyptians to lay the bricks of the great pyramids?  Experts say, on average, it took 30 years with an estimated cost of 1.3 billion in today's dollars. And that was with thousands of slaves (Even then they tried to cut labor costs). There are no written or drawn documents to tell us how they did it.

The experts speculate that the Mayans managed to build their pyramids in 14 to 20 years at an estimated cost of 600 million. (no gold leaf siding)  But still are not sure of exactly how they were built with out modern machines.

Many of the cathedrals of Europe took generations of masons to complete.  This was when the church owned many of the treasures of Europe and had money to burn.  We have glimpses into how they completed them.  However in order to keep some job security, the masons created a fraternal order and vowed secrecy.  Unless you went through an elaborate initiation and learned the secret hand shake.

The Chinese took over a thousand years to complete the Great Wall of China. So long that by the time the last section was completed the first was a crumbing ruin.  That's perseverance for you.  Cost?  No one can even guess.  How???? Who knows.

My brick foundation wall?  Three months, by myself, brick by brick, total cost $503.14.

If you have been paying attention, the entire foundation for my garage took me a snails pace of 14 months.

Unfortunately, like the building secrets of the ancient builders, documentation of my buildings methods have been lost to the ages.  I came to realize that I never put the memory card back in my camera until it was to late and I had finished the wall.

However the final pictures I did get, you can see that my wall turned out pretty well.  The walls are plumb and nearly.... that's nearly square.  Lesson learned from this phase: constantly check the position of your string line.  At some point I knocked the stake holding my string line on the south wall and one of my walls walks in almost 2".  Lucky the bricks are 8" wide and the walls are 4", so I have some space to make adjustments.

BUT... That information has been LOST.




The experts ask, "How did it all come together?"  The Discovery Channel hosts will ponder that question generations from now.  How did he haul the bricks across his lawn? How did he place the bricks with such tight precision?

How fortunate was he in the spacing of his rebar into the cells of the bricks? How long did it take him to fill each cell with grout.  How did he place the anchor bolts?

Answers lost and a mystery created.

But I can tell you one thing my five fans.  My foundation is finished!   14 months since my first shovel of dirt.  Through summer heat and winter gales I persisted.  Little by little.  Shovel by shovel.  Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow.  BRICK BY BRICK.  For those of you who have been following me through this.  You know my excitement.  I knew this would be the excruciatingly long part of this entire process.  But now it is done.

I have crossed this huge hurdle and I'm close, folks.  The sill plates are in.   Everything is set to lower this old beauty onto it's new foundation.  Soon its ancient wood gets new life standing strong on its sturdy legs.  Anchored into the concrete that's wrapped around the solid rock. Connecting it to the entire planet!

Thank God Family!

Where do you look when you really need some help and have no money to pay for laborers?  Look no farther than the branches of your family tree.  Thank God for family!  The best free labor money can buy.

I had the pleasure of many family members coming to visit me when our beloved Greenbay Packers came to Seattle.

Nephew Jason, Sister Jennifer and Brother in Law Greg

We went to see a game that was robbed away from the Packers in the final seconds.  As we stumbled back to my place in disbelief and cried in our beers I came up with a brilliant therapeutic activity to take our minds off the mounting depression.  I will have them all help me pour the remaining concrete for footings and foundation wall.  What else would knock them football blues out of us then humping two and a half yards of concrete?  Actually I had set up my final concrete delivery for the day after the game well in advance knowing that I would have an army of family members to take advantage of being the cheap bastard that I am.

Greg's thinking it looks sturdy enough.

So there they all were at 8am with fresh coffee in hand.  Nephew Jason, sister Jennifer, brother-in-law Greg, father-in-law Larry and best friend Keith all ready for the final pour.

So perfect!  Kitchen Foundation Form

Last of the garage footing

I stood proudly over the forms I built so perfectly.  Boasted of how level and plumb they were.  Displayed the artistry of the well placed re-bar and the sturdy bracing.  Presented how clever I was to build ramps into the bracing system so that the wheelbarrows could easily be pushed up into place to pour the cement.  I proclaimed how fast and easy the pour was going to be.  It had to be as I only had 2 hours with the concrete guy before he started charging me $135 per hour.  But you quickly learn that thinking about how a concrete pour is going to go, and how it really does go can be two different realities.

Jason shoveling as fast as he can

Things started smoothly.  Just as I planned.  But concrete is heavy, especially when it is wet.  In fact it's about 350 lbs. per square foot.  And when you think you have plenty bracing to hold up your concrete forms, my advice to you is put in even more.  As the form continued to fill with more and more concrete I heard something creek and the disconcerting sound of my sister shouting ""SHIT!".  One of the corners where she was standing had blown out and concrete was oozing out of the opening.  I quickly jumped over to her and threw some cinder blocks as a wedge to hold the corner together.  Whew!  tragedy averted.  Then I heard the next creaking.  Then some groaning and eventually a loud "POP" and the entire center of the wall began to bulge!  What could I do but loudly curse and run for the jack in my truck?  I worked with a couple of jacks to try to press the form into place and put in more bracing.

Larry Smoothing Away

The moment I got one area stabilized, another area would begin popping.  I had the rest of the team keep pouring the remaining footing for the garage as I took measures to stabilize the form.  The last thing I wanted was for Dana to come home and find $500 worth of concrete spilled all over the lawn.  It took me about 45 minutes to get things secured.  We went 40 minutes over my 2 hour time limit.  Fortunately the concrete delivery guy took pity on me and only charged me for 20 minutes.

Keith does his part

I learned a lot about concrete this day.  I learned that it is wet, heavy and when it dries it is permanent.  Luckily this wall will eventually be hidden under my kitchen.  But for now it sits out in the open as an embarrassing reminder of what I need to do next time.

Yikes!  Not so perfect.
Managed to save it!

My footings however came out perfect!  Now they are finished and I can move on to the fun part.  I think.  I actually have to put down the cinder block for the garage foundation wall.  I am so close, but feel so far!

Many thanks to Friends Keith and Tom, Nephew Jason, Father in Law Larry, Brother in Law Greg, Sister Jennifer and Bother Mike for the help on the concrete forming and pouring.  I couldn't have done it without you!

SCORE!

Hello my three fans.  I have been away from my blog for a while.  A long while.  It's primarily because not much had progressed on this project over the summer months and I kind of fell into a funk of frustration over this.  The "work stoppage" came down to a number of things.  However, the biggest was money.  Or lack there of.

As much as I try to do this on as little money as possible, get as many things as I can for free, recycling what others discard there are simply some things that need to be bought and paid for.  Like concrete.  In my last entry, the concrete was pouring, but only enough to do half of the foundation work.  Then the summer came, trips were taken, expenses came up and money disappeared.  I'm sure most of you are like me living pay check to pay check that even a $200 dollar purchase of concrete can cause a major dilemma in your creative abilities to balance the books.  Even the big banks and Wall Street investment houses can only get so creative with how they balance the books.  I had to do it the old fashion way and simply admit that I didn't have enough money.  I had to save a little at a time until I came up with it.  Kind of the way we use to do things before credit cards.  I do have to give credit to my wife Dana who manages the family accounts.  I tend to live in the financial moment and I can be generally clueless as to how I spend my money.  I would have had no problems buying more concrete without noticing that my daughter has old worn out shoes or there was no food in the fridge.  Dana has a better grasp on the realities of the parental financial priorities.

So yes, I have spent some money on this garage.  I set a goal of no more than $1000.  Very optomistic!
How much have I spent?  All right... no cooking the books.  Like all good businesses, transparency is what we're after.  Here are the financial reality of this project to date:

Dumpster: $100 (split with the house expenses as half the dumpster was used for the disposal of the old deck, half for the garage roof.)
One trip to the Seattle Dump: $30
One large tarp: $40
Rental of the Concrete Saw and the Jack Hammer: $260
Cost of rebar: $25
Rebar Chairs: $8.16
Wire to tie rebar: $3.85
1 Large box of 3" screws: $16.79
First load of concrete: $123.45 (I thought that was a pretty fun total)
Breakfast and Lunch for my friend Keith who helped with the concrete: $22.72
And yes, I have the final load of concrete that I am estimating at: $200.35
Grand Total: $830.30

Sadly I am off my last prediction of how much I thought I have spent. I'm realizing that I will most likely have to up my overall budget.  Perhaps $2,000?
I hope not that much.  So I have to break the funk, pump up the optimism and up my search for the free material.

Free material came.  In fact a huge score on the building materials came in the form of my neighbor down the street adding onto the back of this house and remodeling his kitchen.  His deck came off and ended up in my back yard.  He took out some doors and windows and they ended up in my back yard.  They started tearing apart another house down the street and...(you guessed it) stuff ended up in my back yard.  I have become a common site in our neighborhood carrying items home for the garage and gaining some interesting looks along with questions as to what the hell am I  going to do with all this stuff. ("Junk" was the word my wife actually used)  Every time I enter my yard I can hear the soundtrack to "Sanford and Son" playing in my head.  Dana has become adept at humming the tune in perfect pitch.   The best reaction was when I scored on a 300gal. plastic water tank that was at least 10 feet long.  She came out to take a look at me rolling the thing into the yard.  She simply rolled her eyes, shook her head, turned around and went back inside without a word.  I have to admit that I am starting to become overwhelmed myself with all the stuff.  But you have to grab somethings at the time they are available or lose out.  You also have to have a clear vision of what your project will finally look like but be flexible to to change that vision if something better comes up.  It's a man's way of looking at a lot of things in life.  Especially when he enters his forties.

So what have I scored on to date.  Let me give you a quick list:
- 2 skylights.
- 1 large double pain fixed window.
- 1 multiple pane swivel window.
- 1 large double pane single hung window
- 1 full day lite exterior door
- Roughly 300 lf of 2x6 cedar boards (these will make an awesome floor)
- 60 8" cinder blocks to build the foundation wall
- A small stock pile of framing material.
- I also salvaged 320 sf of oak flooring that will eventually go into my kitchen. ( I wish I would have saved ever damn nail that I have pulled out of something when I got started.  I may have filled a 5 gal. bucket by now)

Material accumulates in the tent

So the materials accumulate and the challenge is where to put it all.  In my neurotic discomfort with clutter, my weekly chore over the summer turned out to be organizing, stacking and re-organizing my piles of stuff.  I guess this made up for my lack of movement on the construction.  But organized it is! Stuffed into every crawl space, every open stackable space in my house, my garage tent, my yard and you'd never know it was there.  A big help was finding some industrial size pallets that I was able to cut up into 6 foot pieces and they made the perfect lumber rack.  One in the garage tent and one in a crawl space in my basement.

My fear is that the summer is over and the wet months are back again and the garage tent is looking pretty worn.  I had to replace the tarp on the garage as the old one lost it's ability to repel water.  In fact it simply was acting as a small obstacle for the water to pass through only slowing it down for a moment.

More accumulates in the crawl space.

But I have enough material for the moment.  I just gotta get that foundation finished.  The autumn has been fairly nice here in Seattle so I have to take advantage of it and get this garage anchored down before the wind blows and the heavy rain falls and the garage tent collapses!

WISH ME LUCK.

and even more in the basement!

Where do I put it all!

Historical Marker - The Concrete Poureth!!

I love to find little historical markers.  Little (or big) plaques that have been put in place to mark a historic event.  Seattle seems to have them all over the place.  Some in the most unnoticed of places.  My favorite  is a marker down by the port of Seattle sitting by a little used sidewalk hidden among the weeds.  It is a plaque celebrating the first full service auto station that sat on that site in 1907.

 I try to imagine what this road was like in 1907.  An elevated road on the outskirts of town, sitting atop of a mound of dirt to keep it out of the tide flats.  The building itself was probably sitting on piles over the fluctuating tide water and raw sewage.  Now it's a road at least a 1/4 mile from the water, filled in over the years.  Instead of the escape route out of town that it once was, it's now an industrial artery for semi-trucks hauling containers in and out of the harbor.  There are other such markers on my bike route to work marking "maritime" history where there is no longer water or shoreline.

This marks the shipyard that built the USS Nebraska.
Nowhere near the water!

Things shift and move, whether by humans or nature, they move.  We leave behind a marker with a plaque to commemorate some event.  Nature leaves it's own markers like a huge boulder sitting in the middle of a field miles from the mountains, glacial silt under the layers of dirt or some frightening remains of an ancient settlement that was buried under 200' of mud.  Humans are so temporary.  But we try to make a permanent presence. Concrete has certainly helped that.





I have been watching the deconstruction of an old stretch of highway through downtown Seattle.  They are prepping the area to dig a tunnel for the new highway.  It's been an incredible process to see. First to watch the old one come down.  A structure, that when built in the 1950's was considered "state of the art"  Now only 60 years old is worn and outdated.  It also sits on top of what was an old tide flat so in the last earthquake it really took a hit.  They tore down part of it in record time and now it sits as a mountain of gravel that they are using again in the construction of the new highway.  What's incredible is what they are digging up out of that old tide flat area.  Used for years as a dump by a developing town and eventually a city.  You thought I found some incredible things in my backyard, the state has a team of volunteers sifting through the muck they dig up looking for long ago buried trash, now becoming museum artifacts.  Will they look at our garbage the same way in 100 years?  Or  maybe they will  they  be mining our landfills for depleted resources?

One of the drilling machines.  behind is the
viaduct being torn down

Back to the concrete... There is tons of it going into the construction of this tunnel.  In order to start digging the tunnel they are drilling a series of 5' wide holes down about 100' then lowering a tower of rebar into the hole and pumping it full of concrete. Each one of these columns of concrete are placed side by side creating a concrete box in the deep field of mud. There they can then dig out the inner part of the box and eventually lower in the tunnel boring machine the size of one of the ferries that travels from Seattle to one of the many islands.  Most of those ferries can hold up to 200 cars.

Hard to see, but those are 5' wide 100 ' long columns of rebar.

 This concrete box is meant to hold back the tide flat, mud and the waters of the Puget Sound within a seismically active area. We  humans believe that concrete is forever.  And perhaps it is within the time frame of our "forever".  The Hoover Dam still holds back water.  The footings of the Empire State Building still hold that tall structure up and Chernoble's radioactive core is "forever" entombed on a block of solid concrete.  My hope is that the same faith that was put behind the power of that concrete will give the new life needed to my little garage.

My lively passenger

Keith at the kitchen footing form

So I was back at it again.  I borrowed the truck I needed with a towing capacity of 2500 lbs. I went to Handy Andy and got me a yard of concrete to go. I can't tell you how much fun it is to cruise down the highway doing 50+mph with a live, uncovered load of concrete sloshing around behind you.  Take the turns easy and pray for no sudden stops!  Luckily I had my campadre Keith for moral support as I heaved the lively load up and over the West Seattle Bridge and on over to my little construction site.  The only real scare came from working my way up the rather steep hill of my alley.  But no concrete was lost.  We had to work fast as I only had the hopper that the concrete came in for 2 hours.  With two wheel barrels on hand Keith and I humped the first yard into place.  That was specifically for the footing for the eventual kitchen remodel.  I was pretty amazed at how long it takes to wheel in a yard of concrete.  I feel it took us 30 trips from the alley to the form to fill it.  That was enough to stretch my arms out about 3" and wipe us out for the day.

 My second day of concrete I was not fortunate to have Keith's help.  Luckily this load was only 3/4 of a yard.  Little lighter, a little less to pour but no less painful on my back.  I did get the help of Danny the 8 year old boy who lives next door.  He was extremely helpful at keeping the cement mixed and then hosing out the hopper.

Finished Footing North Side

 
I have one more pour to finish the footings under the garage.  Soon the footing will be one with rock that sits under the earth by my garage.  Rock connected to concrete.  Nature's marker of some natural event connecting it to my modern day event.  This time I leave behind my own historical marker.