This past weekend's repairs

As usual, our weekends are planned around the weather and trying to get as much done as possible between various social outings. This weekend we had our annual Halloween party to attend courtesy of our friends Dave and Anne. You can see the pictures by clicking on this picture of Jenni and I in our costumes. We also celebrated Jenni's grandmother's birthday Sunday and somehow found the time to replace a very picky and odd-shaped basement door.

The exterior entrance to a basement sounds like a great idea, but in reality, all it does is create a new entrance location for water and vermin. The existing door was wood and had deteriorated to the point of rotting. You could see light coming through all the way around the door and a good rainfall resulted in water actually flowing under the door and into the basement like a River. This was due primarily to the fact that the concrete landing at the base of the stairs was sloping towards the house! So the first thing I did after removing the door was to create a new concrete slope by laying a special thin-layer concrete atop the existing concrete to slope back towards the drain that leads to the waste pit. You can see the door and the concrete in these 3 pictures:

Unfortunately, the door we purchased didn't quite fit into the rough opening, but it was as close as we could come in an off-the-shelf door. In fact, the pre-framed door had to be sanded and trimmed down as well as doing the same to the rough opening. The results are pretty good, but it was a lot of work and a real pain in the ass to try to wedge that door in there and get it hung properly. I'm glad it's over. We still have to caulk and finish the door but it's already a million times better than before, as you can see here:











We're trying to finish the electrical in the garage before this weekend's party for Jenni's dad's birthday, but we have quite a bit to do yet. It's starting to get pretty cold and we still haven't started hanging drywall in the garage. Hopefully we can get that done before they deliver the windows in the next few weeks!