Concrete started on September 13, 2004 and took 2 weeks to be made into a complete foundation.
 
Phase 2: Concrete
Concrete, Day 1: It's mostly torn up
600 Square feet of concrete gone in one day.
A small pile of footing and slab.
It's now a large sandbox.
Day 2: The footing has been dug out.
113 feet of trench!
This is going to be as big as the house!
This was obviously dug with a machine.
It's 42 inches deep.
Day 3: The footing is poured.
It gets pretty wide in the back.
Poured level, it seems to sink as it reaches the old garage.
There is more than a foot difference.
This is the basis for the forthcoming blocks.
The grey sand is where there was a fire of some kind.
Buried under the pad was this electrical panel.
It doesn't appear to be burned, but it has rusted badly underground for over 60 years.
The concrete guys found some trinkets.  Is this a Bactine bottle?
Day 4: Two rows of block are laid on the footing.
This side has space for a brick ledge.
This wide shot gives you an idea of the size.
You haven't seen a big garage just yet.
45 feet of block!
They were ready to pour on day 5, but there was a problem.
I don't know if the plastic is here for protection or if the concrete will be poured on it.
You can almost picture the concrete.
There will be a small apron on the right.
D'oh! Concrete not approved!  A snag has been hit!
Day 8: The blocks are capped.
They had to dig the sand away and mortar everything.
The brick ledge is still there.
The blocks made up for the height difference.
Day 10: Houston, we have concrete.
What's this for?
this pad is for the exit door.
This is a huge apron!.
Over 1100 square feet of concrete!
As a friend said, I now have my own basketball court.
Unfortunately, cars will be covering this before any basketball can be played.
This area is where the concrete is a tad higher than the bottom of the door. It will no longer open!
Ant View
Day 11: A row of blocks is added to provide the final footing for the new walls.
Tie-down straps are placed all over.
The dirt was also poured around the foundation.
Faint, but still visible are the slab lines as it was cut today.
The concrete is almost done.
Can you picture walls yet?
The dirt cleaned up the area a lot.
Crap.  This crack was noticed Saturday, September 25, 2004.
It is spreading diagonally across the slab.
It grew one inch overnight and is over 3 feet long. I'm making them fix it.