Why is it . . .

  . . . that everything I do inevitably involves digging ditches and pain ?

 Checking items off my to-get-done-before-winter list. . .

 

I sealed all the seams where the wall meets the slab in the Volvo shed with polyurethane caulking.

 

Then screwed down 2 X 4s over latex painters caulk as forms .

 

 

Mixed six bags of Concrete

and got on my knees to cause more pain and fill the forms

like so

Next day I pulled the 2 X 4 forms off and got this . . . yea not perfect but it will have to do . 

I will attend to those gaps with some Waterplug later.

A coffer dam , that when I put the Volvo away in December I will complete , by adding a 2 X 4 bedded in caulking across the entrance . 

And why , you ask , all this fuss ?

. . . cause the grade outside is higher than the garage slab and this is what winter does .

 

. . . which creates more toil and pain . . . cause if I don't

. . .  when it rains this happens . . . 

. . . and then it gets really cold and this happens , which causes several days more pain and toil.

And then this also happens along the south side for the garage .

So . . . after much cogitating I pulled the vinyl siding off the wall and dug a ditch .

Annie took pity on my sorry ass and dug a good bit too.

I pried that ten inch thick , five hundred pound concrete pad about eight inches away from the garage door . And then I found the 220 volt supply line from the house to the garage buried in the ground without a conduit . Yea I have found all sorts of real sketchy work on this house .

So , flipped the breaker in the main panel , I dug the wire out and disconnected it , bought some one inch PVC conduit . . . .

 . . . and ran the wire through the conduit .

After saturating the bottom of the plywood sheathing on the wall several times over with a mix every bit of old polyurethane I had , I coated the joint where the plywood meets the slab with roofing tar .

After that dried for a couple days , I covered the joint with Bituthane . . . .

 

and built a form six inches out from the wall

 Yea . . . I don't have a clue what I'm doing . . . just making it up as I go along .

Chucked a bunch of rocks in there to bulk things up and save on concrete .

. . . . aaaaaaand mixed six more bags of concrete . . .

and poured . . .

Next day when I pulled off the forms it looked like this .

. . . so I extended the form and mixed and poured three more bags to complete the curbing under the side door to the front of the garage .

Then debated what was best to fix the corner to the entry gate so I figured why not more concrete with some more of that fancy fiberglass rebar ?

 

 

Should be only three bags right  ?

 

yea sure . . I need a new wheel barrow too . . five bags later . . .

. . . I'm back on my knees hurting myself again . . .

. . .  doing penance for my sins .

Twenty bags later, eighty lbs each , got me this far .

And I'm not done yet , I still need to extend the slab out from the doors a foot or so . And sort out the siding on the five inch gap on the garage wall .