Today was split between repaying some labor from the slab pour and working on my wall forms. The first half of the day was spent hauling mulch from a free pile of chipped redwood bark and edge-cuts... presumably from a lumber-milling operation. The mulch was actually pretty good stuff, especially considering the price! We made two trips to the mulch pile with two pickup trucks... probably moved around 6-8 cubic yards of the stuff and spread it in small piles around his back-yard orchard, and then had some awesome cheeseburgers and lemonade afterward. Something about doing a big chunk of hard work on a home-improvement project is immensely satisfying, whether or not it's your own project... I would be doing this for fun even if it wasn't in trade for his help on my concrete pour.

The second half of the day was spent on my concrete wall forms. I put most of the strips that I had ripped on Friday onto the forms. I borrowed a generator that was big-enough to run my air compressor, and the installation went a LOT quicker with a nail-gun. I think the end result looks fantastic... I can't wait to see it cast in concrete!

I feel like this part of the project is taking a long, LONG time, but I keep reminding myself that what I am doing now is actually the finish work... in my house, the structure is going to be the finish. What-you-see is what-it-is, and I'm front-loading the finish work... an honest building through and through. I couldn't do it this way if I was rushing through the foundation work to get to the first draw on my construction loan... I've said it before, but it is definitely worth repeating: I get to do it this way, because I'm doing it myself.

This sort of reminds me of the pixelated look of my daughter's Minecraft worlds... I think it looks really cool!

Another view of the forms... just for fun!