We’re Official Delawareans Now!!!

We’ve finally closed on our home in Phoenixville and packed all our belongings. It’s very “bittersweet” for us. There will be a great deal that we'll miss about Phoenixville…especially all our close friends….WHOM WE’LL EXPECT TO VISIT US IN LEWES!! We made multiple trips back and forth over the summer in Tom’s truck. We’ve filled our rental home in Lewes with lots of boxes and furniture to hold us over till we are able to move into our "real" Lewes home. The rest of our belongings were packed into 2 “Pods”. Let’s say that Tom is the most incredible Master Packer that has ever existed in the Universe. A “dime” couldn’t even fit into either of the “Pods” after Tom was finished.

Building a Basement 201

Build the walls on top of the footers, waterproofing, pour additional footers in the middle of the basement where posts will hold up the center beams of the house. Notice the picture of the front of the house; you’ll see spaces left for 2 basement windows and the area around the I-beams. When the walls are complete and waterproofed, a “plate” which caps the top of the basement wall, then the house can finally be lowered onto the top of new basement walls. The I-beams will be removed, the holes in the wall where the I-beams were will be filled in, then the plate will be attached to the bottom frame of the house. Hopefully this all will be finished next week. THEN THERE IS MORE!!!! Bob will start digging the basement which will be built under the new extension on the back of the house. Because of space limitations on our property, we were unable to dig the ENTIRE basement all at once. SOOOOO…we’re back to pumping out water, pouring gravel, etc. etc., etc. ONE MORE TIME!!

Building a Basement 101

There’s lots to do building a basement. First….get the ground as dry as possible, the gravel, then footers. We hired an company to help us with this work….but ya can’t get Tom out of a hole in the ground working along side the workmen. Notice the paid "worker" looking up at the birds while Tom digs out the foundation walls. Shovels, gravel and cement is just too enticing for Tom to ignore!

Rockette Kicks Pay Off

Richard helps out by holding up the Wall-‘O-Earth so it wouldn’t topple in on the footers. To everyone’s astonishment, a simple “Rockette” kick was just the necessary move.

Water, water, everywhere…

Before the basement, Tom set up a pumping system to continually drain the ground water so we could proceed. It was touch-and-go with building a DRY basement!