"Can your guy be there at noon?" The man on the phone from Chandler Concrete was as pleasant as he'd been the first four times I had re-scheduled the delivery of a yard – no, make that two yards – of concrete.
By then, the square-ish box of pressure treated wood will be ready to accept the squishy grey mud. Randy Bledsoe. has been working on it since Monday, making sure that the dirt at the bottom is level. Four inches of concrete will soon support the GardenSpirit hot tub and give a little extra oomph to the new deck that will accompany it.
Ah yes, the hot tub. Even my earliest dreams of GardenSpirit included a bubbling tub set into a secret garden - a place for women to luxuriate, chat, relax after a long day in the garden. So even before I put down the floor in the sunroom before the painters get started next week, I am installing a hot tub that will easiily hold 6 women and as many as 8 or 9 in a squeeze. I got great deal on it - bought it from a nice woman in Burlington who said she'd used it only 10 times in the three years it had sat behind her house. In almost perfect condition.
Right now it's sitting in the garage. Thank goodness the doors are 9 feet wide; it gave the delivery men (5 of them) a couple of inches of clearance on each side when they slid it onto THAT concrete pad. Like a lot of things during this renovation, installing the hot tub is a domino effect process: first I had the architect design the deck, then Glenn Parker, the contractor had to make sure the deck design would work. But he pointed out that one of the septic tanks was buried somewhere in the vicinity of the new deck. Oops. Can't build on top of that.
So yesterday, Clean Septic System came out to a) find the exact location of the tank and b) pump the septic system. Of course, when Tracey tried to remove the septic system cap, it cracked. He's gone to get another one and will be back today to pump it. And the concrete guys will be here at noon.
Because it rained Tuesday, the ground is damp and soft. Randy says he'll have to wheelbarrow the concrete from the driveway to the wooden box - the concrete form as it's known officially. Then a little screed action to level it (not smooth, mind you -- a little rough to prevent falls), a day or two of curing and then we can get the hot tub out of the garage and into the open air again. Just in the nick of time --the garage doors are being replaced in another week or so and there's no access with the tub sitting squarely under the door opener. Like I said -- it's a process.
Next up: an emergency trip to Raleigh to pick up fabric for the squeaky rattan chairs in the family room. Gotta get there before Friday. That's when Juan the upholsterer comes back with the loveseat he's finished. Whew!
