The straw’s here and I’m thinking I can lay this foundation in two days… maybe three.

After all, it’s a small bathhouse, really. Just a circular room, 13 feet across on the inside.

Shoot, I even have the interior framing for the floor almost done. This’ll be a cinch.

Looking uphill from the deck.

 

Looking downhill.

 

How hard can it be?

I even have a stack of cement blocks and picked up some more in Betsy that’ll hold us for the job.

…and I even worked out how many blocks I’ll need. Did the math. Everything.

 

So, we get started.

First, we dug a trench to fill with gravel before I place and level the cement block.

 

Here’s JC detailing the last section to be dug. Yes, I had help building the bathhouse! I’d recently thrown my back out and didn’t want to go there again, so I enlisted the aid of a neighbor, JC. We worked pretty well together and we had awesome straight walls on our foundation ‘slot’ dug into the ground. JC will literally save my back by being the primary cement mixer through three pallets of cement.

Without complaining.

You’ll see all that concrete in use as the page progresses.

 

Thankfully, we don’t have much snow at this elevation, so we didn’t have to dig too deeply in the summer-rock-hard ground.

The secret is to chip out the top layer of dirt, then soak the next layer overnight. This lets the water really infiltrate the dirt good and proper. Before the sun comes up and dries out the dirt the next day, you go out and dig a little deeper. Then wait until evening and soak it again.

 

If you’re a professional mason or bricklayer, TURN BACK NOW!!!

Yes, it’s not a professional job. I am not a professional. (surprise, surprise!) I’m happy it’s vertical and pretty level.

I’m pretty sure it’s not going to go anywhere, any time soon.

 

 

Here we go! It took FOREVER to get all these blocks lined up horizontally and level to each other.

It’ll turn out that they’re only level with their neighbor, which SHOULD mean they’re level with all the other ones.

Unfortunately, the bathhouse is in Alice-in-Wonderland-land where level means something other than level when all is said and done.

When I get the whole thing up, I’ll discover that one side of the doorway (just wait) is a good inch or two higher than the other side of the doorway.

 

Of course it is.

 

But for now, I’m blissfully ignorant of that fact.

 

Anyway, the construction books say that a wall like this should have rebar every four feet, so each section of wall gets rebar every four feet and I even think to offset it from the rebar in the accompanying wall.

I’m so clever.

(and look! A hose! We have running water! Blessings are on us from the slowpump gods! We don’t have to tote water by hand for the concrete anymore.)

 

 

So, I start mortaring and stacking and filling with concrete. Keeping things vertical isn’t very difficult. The circle’s so tight that the block leaves nice big ‘chinks’ on the outside of the curve which means I don’t have to be completely anal about how far apart the blocks are from each other.

Remember that the concrete block will be covered with stones from the river, set in mortar. We’ll never see the joints (chinks) anyway. I figure the excess concrete in the chink will act as a shelf for the river rock and grout to hang on to.

Most important is that the wall doesn’t move up, down or sideways.

 

In the picture above, you can see that I’ve done a TERRIFIC job lining up the top of the loo opening with the bottom of the toilet box. The box bottom is only an inch above the top surface.

 

What I’ve not considered is that when we pull the toilet forward, it will be sliding (ready for it?) Downhill.

I’ve built the opening too high.

BUT, it won’t be morning until I figure this out and by then the cement’s pretty much set where it is, so I’ll leave it to deal with later.

Besides, I need the walls UP for the bale raising and it’s already three days into building.

I call Greg and tell him I won’t be coming home when expected.

…and I order two pallets of concrete block and a pallet of concrete because I’ve finally figured out that I don’t have near enough on hand. My math was so very, very off. Still, I think I now have more than I’ll need.

Being delusional isn’t bad though, because it means that I won’t mind when it comes time to order even more of both.

 

 

This is Lorne.

I like Lorne.

Lorne brings supplies up the mountain for worn-out and materials-desperate women.

Lorne even helps unload them.

Even when it’s a pallet of cement.

…and he doesn’t seem to mind.

We tip Lorne well because Lorne is wonderful.

I ask for him by name.

 

…and the foundation rises…

 

Check it out!

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

The space makes a nice shower now (check out the hose. A shower!) and is cool in its shade.

With the temperatures reaching upwards of 100 degrees some days, we can use some shade.

 

All that’s left is to fill vertical cavities with the remaining concrete, place the remaining J-hooks (you can see some stubbing up from the top of the wall on the left of the door opening. We stuff some cavities with broken bits of concrete and pour until we’re empty, making sure to hit all the spots that need a J-hook or will be a threshold. We still have many cavities left, so we make our version of ‘leichthelm’ (clay-dirt, straw and water.) We fill the remaining cavities with rocks and then the leichthelm mixture, stuffing and filling between the two walls as well. This puppy’s solid.

I walk on the top and feel pretty grand about it – but mostly relieved. The foundation’s ready for the moisture barrier then baling!

 

Yes, you’ve noticed that the opening on the one side of the doorway is significantly lower. The foundation nearest the deck (to the right of the door opening) will be one strawbale shorter than the rest of the building. This will help keep water from running off the deck and onto the plastered bales. A wet bale is a miserable thing.

 

Next up: The bale raising!