UNDER THE VOLCANO

Mrs F texted me a reminder that I’d promised all the dedicated readers of this blog that I would post weekly updates on the progress of Mr and Mrs F’s “affordable” dream house.. She also reminded me that two weeks have passed since my last post and that I owe all three of you a sincere apology.  So I sincerely apologize for not posting last week and am determined to make up for my negligence by subjecting you to two posts in one day.  I’ve already posted once  today (“You’ll Never Get Rich Digging a Ditch”), so if you survived that and are still hungry for more self-inflicted punishment, read on. After the initial excavation work, the foundation crew went to town, led by Mr M (for Masonry).  A bearded, six-foot-eight goliath, Mr M’s voice always sounded as if it were rumbling from the bottom of a volcano.  Every time he spoke Mr F thought he had to drop down and do fifty push-ups.  Not much to report here except a lot of painstaking and exacting work.  They even got the surveyor involved to make sure everything was level, square, plumb, etc.  By “everything” I mean pouring the footings, building the columns and piers, preparing and pouring slabs of cement in the basement and the garage, laying the cinderblock for the stem-wall, and last but not least,  grouting (which Mr F thought was either the latest dance move or something you do on the internet).  This took five weeks, but it overlapped with three weeks of excavation work. Things would have moved faster if Mr F hadn’t decided to get all hands-on with the project and do the waterproofing himself.  This consisted of rolling and brushing a thick, tarry substance over large sections of the stem-wall.  Needless to say, Mr F got more tar on himself than on the walls.  Every night he came home looking like Al Jolson.  Twenty gallons of tar later Mr F called the job done, eliciting a  gale-force gasp of relief from Mr E, Mr M, Mrs F and anyone else within a thirty mile radius of the project. Relief was short-lived, however, as Mr F then decided to lend a helping hand with the installation of 200 feet of French drains.  Fortunately, Mr E was present to supervise and avert disaster.