It's easier to enter the house now

Well another week has gone by and a little more work has been done. By the way here's a picture of the culvert the city installed. Sure makes the driveway a lot better to use. The Moat I had before was almost good enough to stop a M1 Abrams tank.

I started last week Sunday by working on side porch area. I dug out an area just beside the porch where the A/C will sit. I dug down at least a foot, pounded it down and then laid down a few inches of gravel and pounded it down. I repeated this process for 6in worth of gravel. I then installed some Pressure Treated 6by6 as edging for this pad area as well as edging in the area underneath the side porch. Under the porch area I placed more dirt graded this with a slope away from the house and then installed some landscape fabric. On top of the fabric I spread out 2-3in of gravel.
On Tuesday I spent some time installing some of the Master Bath and bedroom trim. As well I installed four 3by6 Fir timbers at the four corners of the house. They are more decorative than structural however the two at the back will help support the beams for the roof over the back porch. I also dug down and installed two newel posts for the future railings for the side porch stairs. I thought I had them so carefully marked out however when installing the stairs today I realized they were 6in further from the house than they needed to be. They still will work just not aesthetically the way I planned. I also installed the decking on the side porch. Here's a picture of the resultant work.

On Wednesday I initially spent some time a Mom's house with electricians working on fixing up the wiring that the inspector found. Later I went to the house and poured a pad of concrete at the side porch area. Twenty six bags later the pad was poured. I also spent some time moving some of the dirt the city dug out when installing my culvert to the front porch area to raise the dirt and level it out where the porch will be. Here's a picture of the concrete pad. The picture was taken just after pouring and initial troweling. Later once the concrete setup some more I used a broom to give it a rough coating for traction purposes. I also primed the drywall repairs that I had done in the Master Bath.

Since I worked on Thursday all I did was stop by the house on the way home to give the drywall repaired area an initial coat of blue paint. 

Today I went out to the house for a few hours and put the second coat of paint on the drywall repairs as well as on the Master Bedroom window trim. I then went outside and stripped off the forming for the concrete pad and proceeded to build my stairs for the side porch. A little while later this was done. Here is the result of that work. The stairs are done and I've calculated what I need to install the railings for this side porch. Here's a picture of the stairs.

Well this coming week I have three full days to work on the house. Hopefully by my next report I can state that the bathroom is almost done and I'll be really close to getting an occupancy certificate. Until then have  a great week.

Harold