We moved from our house in Kansas City on Saturday after a fairly brutal week of packing, cleaning, and little sleep. My advice to anyone considering moving ever again in their lives is start throwing or giving away things immediately.
Sunday we completed a few more miscellaneous tasks to get ready for some more concrete on the front porch and for the deck off of our master bedroom. We placed some 2×6’s to make the face of the front porch, and re-chalked all the lines to mark the eventual top of the surface. Once that was set up Jill and I caulked the inside of the form to patch up a few rough spots as well as to soften the lower edge where the lip of the top level will hang over the facing wall.
Additionally, we marked the location of the three more pillars on the back patio so that when we get another load of concrete we will be ready to fill them up to the right level. There will be six short pillars under the master bedroom deck, so we also dug four more holes that will eventually be filled with slugs of concrete to provide a footing for the columns.
It was fairly slow this morning, we started by getting the driveway forms started and standing by for a load of concrete. Sure enough later in the morning, we got word that three yards of ’state mix’ (a very rich mix used for the construction of roads by the state) was on the way. The only bad news is that we would need more than three yards if the entire remaining void of the front porch was to be filled with concrete. Doug got his tractor, and we leveled out a few loads of gravel so we would need about six inches to reach the top.
In an a great stroke of good fortune, the creamy, incredibly strong concrete proved to be just enough to complete the slab, we only had about a quart left over.
A few hours later we came back to seal the slab, and stripped off the forms so we could seal the face as well. The top portion which will be exposed looks fantastic (and just like our current bathroom concrete countertop), and the rougher face below will be covered by a step and some tile to match the surface of the flagstone patio.
I finally got in touch with Micah, and as expected he had been consumed by another job. He suggested that we go ahead and frame the walls and that he would compensate us for the extra expense of having to hand-finish the areas in the smaller spaces (closets, etc) once the walls were framed. I’m not entirely certain how we will proceed there, we are currently weighing the pros and cons of waiting against the somewhat unpredictable schedule of his crew and some of the other subs.
I’m in arrears for a few pictures, please enjoy…
