baer beginnings: DUST IN THE WIND[ows and walls and everywhere else]

The plumbing plan:

I'll spare you the details, but after looking at all the options and going through plans A, B, C... we've arrived at the best way to go from a peninsula to an island. We've wanted to avoid moving "things" (water, gas, electrical, ventilation) as much as possible because that = $$$. But this was unavoidable. The water pipes are in the slab of course. But the drain and electrical got from the wall to the sink through the peninsula, which is gone. So unless we wanted a post from the island to the ceiling, we had to go underground.

You know the song... Can't go over it. Can't go through it. Have to go under it. So before the plumbers could actually do their thing, we had to bust into our foundation to get to everything and [spoiler alert] there were some surprises along the way.

Basically we had to get rid of the entire slab that was under the peninsula. First we cut the edges, borrowing Ben and Scout's diamond blade to cut the concrete. (They're in the middle of their own sweet concrete project.) By cutting the edges you don't risk the jack hammer getting out of hand and going into the areas you don't want to destroy.

Such a flippin mess. At this point our entire house is officially a disaster zone. You can't keep the concrete dust contained. I was following Chris along with the shop-vac as he was cutting. I felt like the dental hygienist sucking up the saliva while the dentist drills away. Yum.

This is one of the sweet deep corners. It took about 5 passes of the skilsaw around each rectangle. A very long night.

Getting some fresh air in the backyard. Man, are we H-O-T.

Now it's time to start destroying the foundation. Dano is so awesome - he loaned us his beast of a jackhammer so we didn't have to rent one.

Our initial attack.

The first "surprise". Chris hit the freon line. Who would have thought the freon would have run through this part of the slab rather than through the attic? We sure didn't and everyone else found it strange too. I wasn't there but when Chris hit it, it took him a minute to process what was happening. Is it water? No. Gas? No (thank goodness). Then the smell test... freon! Good thing we know an AC guy :)

"Surprise" number two. We hit a water line. It sprayed pretty much everywhere while we sprinted to the water main to turn it off. Time to call Dano for an unplanned trip out to seal the line so we'll have running water.