Concrete ideas

Happy weekend-after-a-Monday-holiday, everyone!  I don't know about you, but this week has felt like it was WEEKs long.

It's been a hectic and interesting week here in central Kentucky.  I believe I mentioned in this space some time ago that we were trying to do some long-overdue projects to our house, as we weighed out the prospect of selling and then moving to another home, but ultimately opted to improve our current home here. We like the location and what's nearby and have lived in this house since 1996, so the prospect of packing up and moving was not that appealing!

Anyway, we started down this path last year, armed with a good tax refund and some stimulus money that we socked away.  Last summer we had a fence replaced and also had our gutters and downspouts replaced.  And we planned to have our driveway and front walk torn out and redone, and even agreed to have it done by a contractor who never responded after we sent him the signed quote.  So we opted instead to have the remainder of our windows replaced.

We continued looking for a concrete contractor but didn't have a lot of luck until late April, when I was away on business.  My wife passed by a newly redone driveway not far from here and snapped a picture of the sign on display advertising the contractor.  I then called and had a good conversation with the owner, and he came the next week, when I was again traveling for work.  My wife liked him and he outlined the job and even said that it would be possible to do our patio in the rear of the house, something no other contractor was interested in doing.

A proposal arrived in an e-mail, at a higher price than our previous estimates, but with more work involved, so we committed and sent the first of three payments.  We received periodic scheduling updates but were always told it would probably be late June or early July before our job would be undertaken.

Last week the contractor e-mailed to say that they would commence work on July 5.  So he and his team arrived late morning on Tuesday and began the process of removing our old concrete (they had to jackhammer the patio, since it's in the back and through a gate, but they had plenty of people to do that work and move the pieces to the front for disposal.

Because all of the affected areas were adjacent to our points of entry into the house, the contractor decided to pour part of the concrete yesterday and the rest today, so that we could get in and out.  It's all poured now, and they're finishing the driveway as I write this.  He said they'll be back tomorrow to cut the joints (necessary so that the concrete will crack where desired rather than in random places, one of the many problems with our old driveway and walk), remove the forms and clean up a bit.

We'll have to wait until late next week before we can drive on the new driveway, to assure that it cures properly.  Our retired next door neighbor graciously offered one side of his driveway for our cars, but we're only using it for our newer car.  The other one is older and has an oil leak, so it's being parked in the street!

Needless to say, it's been interesting to watch this process.  Most of the workers are Latinos and are unfailingly pleasant to us and to each other.  They work hard, despite the oppressive heat and humidity we've had all week.  And the company owner has been here all of the time every day this week, which is also impressive and precisely what he implied when we spoke and met with him.

To get that and my cataract surgery completed all in about a month's time is pretty amazing, in my mind.  By the way, I did have to get new glasses, but mostly because I wanted to see as well as possible with my newly repaired left eye.  They should arrive sometime next week.

I don't know what's next.  We have some boards in our engineered hardwood floor that are popping, so that would likely be the next thing to tackle.  Then furniture, and probably repainting the interior (which I am NOT planning to do this time!).

And then something else, because that's what conscientious homeowners do, you know!