Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - Minnie Becomes Queen of the Hill

What I will now call Day 1 of construction begins with the excavation of quite a bit of dirt from what will be the basement area, which is now piled high in the back yard. Ah, the smell of progress. The dirt will be used as backfill once the foundation is complete, and then anything left over will be used to re-grade the front and back yards. Until then, Minnie (our Rottweiler) enjoys digging in the dirt pile and playing King, er, Queen of the Mountain. Unfortunately, we also came home to a hole in the side of the house about the size of a beachball on the outside and about the size of a grapefruit on the inside. Nothing quite like seeing daylight through a hole in the wall. Apparently the contractor needed to find out where the flooring of the existing structure was to determine how deep to dig. Instead of listening to one of his workers who told him it was at the point where the bricks meet the blocks, or instead of waiting for us to get home so he could go inside and make the determination, or instead of walking six feet to his left and peering through the sliding glass door to see where the floor was, he decided to take a sledgehammer to the house. Doesn't he remember sledgehammers are only to be used to down small trees? He punched through brick, wood, and drywall to find the floor, which was, ironically, right where the bricks meet the blocks. Luckily that wall has to come down anyway, albeit not for another month. So, the hole is patched on both sides in hopes that Friday’s predicted strong storms don’t penetrate the plastic sheeting duct-taped to the side of the house. Other than that, our biggest challenge is to keep Otis, our 15-year-old blind and deaf beagle, away from the giant eight-foot hole right smack dab in the middle of his stomping grounds.