Done, and Done!

What a treat to post this news, and these shots. After much thought, labor, bad weather etc., we finally have a foundation. As a plus, it's fairly handsome as these things go. In this shot one of the finishers is preparing to remove the bolt template which held anchor bolts in place:

Marco manned the trowel machine all afternoon, getting finer and finer results with each session:

Later in the afternoon the guys are still at it with machine and hand tools:

By Sunday all that was left to do was hose down the slab to aid in the curing process. Here is my dear wife Billie, also our C.O.O., happily lending a hand.

So now all that remains is for the concrete crew to remove the forms and in a few days we'll start going up with the frame. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Progress, Part 3

Saturday, Jan 26--at long last we have made some concrete advances.
Crew arrived and got busy immediately, for the cement truck arrived right at 7 a.m.
Before long, it was running down the chute:

The quickly-paced job was to grab the wire mesh and lift it into the mid range of that concrete, while pulling the heavy mix into position. Like everything else, the pros make it look easy:

After a bit, the forms are getting loaded up with what will be our shop floor. They are working on our tool room in this shot:

And more leveling, tugging, pulling, etc...

The third truck brought out about half a load, giving us something like a 25 yard pour. Here's the last bit getting dumped into the west side of our tool room:

And Marco cutting in the slope for our roll up door.

Hard to believe we've actually arrived at this point....

Progress, Part 2

 

Next step before concrete can be poured is to bury the plumbing in all the right places. Old friend Jimmie Spies and his son Josh to the rescue. Jimmie helped me plumb our house some 20 years ago, and I'm glad he's still in the business:

 

 

 

That was yesterday's work, Thursday, Jan. 24. And that gets us ready to finish the form work today, Friday 25th. Juan and company got here bright and early, and before long the site looked like this:

That tractor was retrieving some wayward soil that was trying to escape the site. When satisfied that we had enough to work with, the guys fine-tuned the grading and dug footings and beams:

Lay out some plastic, follow up with some reinforcing steel, and it starts to look ready for concrete:

Muchas gracias, amigos!



Shop Progress

It's funny what holidays and rainstorms can do to one's time table. Outside work has been quite difficult to coordinate this winter. But we finally caught a few days of good weather, and resumed work on our new shop. Juan Mendez and his speedy crew came out to start form work on Wednesday. Here he is, laying out the east wall:

And next, his crew is laying out the NE corner. The gentleman on the left is "T.I.", and an impressive worker. More on him in a minute. But you can see under that form board that our winter rains have caused some erosion of fill dirt. That's ok...here in Texas we don't complain about rainy days!

Back to T.I.-- here he is, making stakes with nary a pencil line to guide, just his eye, skill and steady hands. When he gets tired of concrete work, maybe he'd like to help us at Kinnaird Guitars? He'd be great to have around:

And before the day was done, the place was looking like this:

It is always a blessing having help like this. Thanks guys!