House mover Jeff Blake has become fond of the Red House, referring to it as “the old girl” or “she” like sailors DownEast call their boats. Imagining the house as a woman, we can say that this week, she lifted her skirts for a new foundation garment.

The house was already hovering above the footings but it needed to rise another four feet to accommodate the 10-foot forms that were built for pouring the concrete foundation walls.

To our surprise and amazement, the concrete trucks arrived earlier than expected. On Wednesday afternoon, this is what we saw in the driveway.

Working with a jovial crew, Henry of Henry’s Concrete directed the wet mix of 10% cement, 20% air and water, 30% sand and 40% gravel (Redi-Mix) into the forms, simultaneously conducting business on his cell phone while two other Redi-Mix trucks waited. It all went very quickly.

On Thursday, the crew returned to remove the forms, leaving three of four basement walls. Because it will be a walkout basement, the fourth north facing wall will be stick built. With the house sitting so high, we could easily walk under it and see the old log beams and the granite supporting the chimney stack.

This weekend’s unseasonably warm weather is perfect for curing concrete. We can relax a little now before Ryan and his crew from Crowell Construction come back to begin building the back wall and framing the new ell.

Sometimes it’s nice just to sit back and enjoy the views.