Always wanted to try a jack-hammer!

Ever sit at a red light, watching a street crew guy (or gal) jack-hammer away some perfectly good part of the street while all his buddies stand around like they have nothing else to do? Well, I've seen it plenty of times, and I've always thought it would be tons of fun to actually pick up a jack-hammer and demolish something (preferably something that has nothing wrong with it, like a nice old slab of concrete....)

So, we held a little demolition-derby of our own. The boys were fantastic helpers. They helped chisel out a ton of the slab, and then helped load all the bits and pieces into buckets and carried them outside. When the hole was finally dug, the plumber suctioned the water out, cut out the old cast iron piping, and then put in new pipes for the shower, toilet, main drop (serves everything upstairs), bathroom sink, laundry sink and washing machine.

After the pipes were all set, Kristin and I mixed, poured and floated the new concrete. In the end, putting pipes under the floor was tons of work, tons of fun, and totally worth it to have a full bathroom in our basement.