Just for fun

Ron & Nathan headed to the house site yesterday with their toys and had a bit of fun on the dirt piles!

Larissa was playing a game she made up while the boys were quadding and Bethany rode her tricycle (I don't have a picture of that).

The rain started late this afternoon so it could be a slow, soggy week.

Weekly Report

Our week has been pretty crazy, and the kids have been crazier, I haven't had time to get to the house to see what's going on. The kids and I were there Tuesday evening for a few minutes after Larissa's soccer game but that's about it. Now the forecast is for rain for the next 5 days so it won't be until next week until I get over there. I can tell you that the garage piles have been dug and poured and the weeping tile has been laid down. I thing the blueskin was going on this week too. Blueskin is the waterproofing membrane that is attached to the styrofoam on the outside of the basement walls to guard against seepage, I think. Ron had been told this would be an "odds and ends" week where it didn't look like much was getting done but I don't know, I think those three things are good accomplishments, considering Monday was a holiday and there's possibly rain coming tonight.

Tuesday one of the guys stopped by to let me know that the holes for the garage piles had been dug and we should stay away from that side of the house. That, of course, was an invitation for Nathan to check them out! The holes are 10 feet deep so he wanted to see what that looked like. I made the kids stay a good safe distance back and I took a picture for them. When I told Nathan that I couldn't see the bottom of the hole he wasn't so interested in getting close anymore! The picture is below.

Weeping tile

The kids were thrilled that the windows had been cut out completely. I think it was Larissa who said that it now definitely looked like a basement with the windows.

I don't remember if I mentioned it last week but we went window shopping last Wednesday. It was actually a painless experience and we were quite pleased with that. The final confirmation went in today so that is another thing crossed off our list!

On the farming front (for all of you AgTalk-ers out there!) we are almost done seeding! The guys took shifts and worked all through the night last night and have gone all day today to hopefully finish up tonight. There are still about 300 acres that haven't been seeded but it's so wet Ron wasn't sure if it will be seeded at all this year. I realize we are very fortunate this year to be at this point as there are many who haven't been able to get much done. With wet fields from last fall and the amount of snow we had over the winter the rains that we have had this spring are quite unwelcomed. Here's to hoping the rain doesn't fall, or at least not fall as much!

Basement Walls

It's been a busy week on the "krahn"struction site. The basement walls are up and full of cement. It's been a lot of fun watching this process, it happened so quickly we almost missed it! It was beautiful week here in regards to the weather so the guys worked steadily.

This is what the basement walls look like before they are assembled. Nathan thought it would be great to play with life-sized Lego.

The first two layers are on.

Walls are up! This is looking from the west. I think all of the basement pictures are from this angle, the dirt pile is highest here and parallel to the house.

Filling the walls with cement.

The cement was poured yesterday morning. We got out to the site at 8:15am and the kids missed the bus so they could keep watching for a while longer. Nathan missed the pouring of the footings the week before so he really wanted to watch the basement walls being filled. Don't worry, I had called the teachers and they were all good with Nathan & Larissa missing a bit of school. Apparently after 15 minutes of watching cement running into walls it's not that exciting anymore and playing on the dirt piles is more fun so they were at school before 9:00!

It's rather rainy today and is supposed to stay until tomorrow. I was a little concerned about the rain and cement but I'm not wise in the ways of construction and have been told that this weather is better than hot and windy for curing cement. Who knew! I'm a farmer's wife so hot and windy is good for drying fields and crops when it's very wet and we want to get on the field.

I'm sure some of you are curious about the farming end of things so here's our "farm report". This week has been one busy week! Ron's been out of the house by 6:30 most mornings and we don't see him until about 11:00 at night. He comes in for 5 minutes meals and then is gone again. Ron does the spraying so he doesn't always go as late into the night as his brother does, who does most of the seeding but is later getting out in the mornings. Ron's not a morning person so the early mornings are rough! We have about 1200 acres of 4100 left to seed. The fields are wet but the guys haven't been stuck too many times this spring.

On the homefront we are running to soccer 3 times a week. Nathan plays twice, Rivers on Monday's & Brandon on Wednesday's, and Larissa has mini soccer on Tuesday's. Larissa is very excited for this coming Tuesday as they are travelling to Hamiota to play a game "against other people!!" Bethany is busy socializing during the soccer evenings. Thankfully there are younger siblings of other players for her to play with all 3 evenings, I'm not sure what I'd do with her otherwise!

The forecast looks nice and sunny the for next week, with temps in the mid-teens, so it should be another productive week on the "krahn"struction site!

Foundation!

The foundation is poured! It was cold and miserable, but not raining, thankfully. I think everyone was wearing mitts, toques, winter jackets and rubber boots this afternoon while the cement was being pumped into the footings. The temperature was 4 degress celcius (-28 with the windchill!) and the low tonight is +1 so no heaters or covering is required. The working guys warmed up but I stayed bundled up and the girls were in the van except for the 2 minutes they came out to watch the cement come out of the "truck with the arm that kinda looks like an elephant's trunk". (quote courtesy of Larissa)

It's all ready to go.

The pumper truck. Sure beats the old cement trucks with chutes everywhere!

Observing from the warmth of the van.

 All done, just waiting to dry.

Nathan had been in school while the work was being done so he quickly inspected the job after supper and then had to play on the gravel pile for a bit while we girls waited in the van. Yup, we are definitely whimps when it comes to the cold!



Unexpected Progress!

It has been grey, drizzly and miserable here for almost a week now so I wasn't expecting much to get done. The progress that was made yesterday and today was a very nice surprise! The forms for the footings are almost complete, tomorrow they will be inspected and hopefully Friday the cement will be poured. Josiah's crew has been working hard in the rain, wind, cool temps and puddles in the basement while Ron, his dad & Derek (our hired man) have been working on the driveway. The driveway was made last fall but it was really soft this spring, machinery was getting stuck, so they have made some improvements. There was landscape fabric laid down today and gravel hauled so by tomorrow afternoon the driveway should be in good condition. The visual evidence of the work done is below!

Thankfully our basement isn't as full of water as the ditch!



Not quite a swimming pool



Prep Day

Today was one of those days where it doesn't look like any progress has been made but prep work was being done so the footings can get started soon. The kids and I went to "inspect" the site after school and they made a bee-line for the piles of dirt, I think we have a new playground!

I took this picture then promply told the kids they had to play on the other side of the hill. I didn't want them falling into the basement!

When we got to the site we saw this pile in the basement and no one was around. Bethany thought it was great, we were going to have a bonfire in our basement! When I told her that it was for the house she looked confused, she couldn't believe that our house was going to be made of wood! I guess if you can't see the bones the body is just made of skin.

We have about 5 days of rain forecasted starting tomorrow late afternoon/evening so I don't expect much progress to be made in the next week. Hopefully the rain doesn't amount to much!

Welcome!

We have started digging our basement! Ron was out at the site at 7:30 this morning with our builder, Josiah Mikkelsen of Kingdom Construction, marking out the lines of the basement. The morning was then spent making sure the fields weren't ready to be seeded so that digging could happen this afternoon. After an hour or so of the final measurements the track hoe was started up and the basement was started! Ron and his dad worked hard all afternoon, unfortunately, however, they were unable to finish before dark but are confident that an hour or so tomorrow morning should finish the job. The kids are more than thrilled that we have started. Bethany (4) has been asking for months why everyone else has a basement except us so she is excited to be in the "we have a basement" club. Nathan (8) has Ron's keen eye so he will be out at the site every day making sure everything is going as planned. Larissa (6) will skip around the site pretending she's playing in the front or back yards of the new house.

This was taken last week when we dug a "test hole" to see if there was any water that would pool at the bottom or if we would be good to go. It obviously passed the test!

I would like to say thanks to Tracy Dyck at S3 Interior Design for helping us develop our house plan. There still aren't any changes we want to make!

This is the 3D floor plan. I will walk you through it by explaining the rooms front to back starting from the garage, which is on the right. Mudroom, ensuite, walk-in closet. Dining area, kitchen, master bedroom. Great room. Girls room, bathroom, Nathan's room.

This is just to give an idea as to what the finished product will look like. We have chosen different colours but the image is a good representation.

If you have any hints or advice on how to make this process less stressful we would love to hear them! Thanks for joining us on this journey and we look forward to hearing from you!