Finishing the Foundation! December 18, 2009

The foundation was officially finished a couple of days ago!  Yippee!!

There is the finished slab . . . all nice and smooth!

For the past two days, they have been backfilling the foundation and grading the site.  So that the land, as well as the foundation, can be nice and smooth! 

Remember those huge “mountains”?  Well here they are now . . .

Then they had this thing called a . . . (asking my Dad what the name of that thing was ) tamper (aka jumping jack) that stamped down the dirt around the foundation.

Doesn’t that look like the funnest job in the world! (that was sarcastic )  I learned (from my Dad of course, who else?) that they pack it down 8 inches at a time so that they ground doesn’t settle.  I know you really wanted to know that (sarcastic) but I just wanted to share my knowledge !

The carpenters are supposed to start framing on Monday but there is LOTS of snow forecasted for the weekend.  Stay tuned . . .  Here is a pic of all that lumber . . .

More Progress! December 14, 2009

Over the past couple of days inground plumbing, footer drain (draintile), slab prep and foundation waterproofing was done.  Don’t ask me what that is because I don’t know .

The first step . . .

The gravel being brought in.  You can see the foundation waterproofing on the side, it is the black stuff.  Then the workers spread the gravel.

There is the finished slab prep, the gravel underneath the plastic and then the wire mesh on top.  I think it is to keep the critters out of the concrete. .  . Would not want half a coon sticking out now would we?

Here is something a little more detailed.

Just if you wanted to see it up close .

The workers then poured  the slab and smoothed it.

Don’t you want to know how they prevent themselves from getting “stuck in the concrete”?  Maybe they will still be there tomorrow?  Stay tuned. . . (I know you are dying to know the outcome. . .how can you sleep?).

I will post a picture of the finished product tomorrow.

*comments in red are by my mom trying to spice things up !

The Foundation Walls (cont.) December 4, 2009

They took the forms off the walls yesterday.  Too bad I didn’t take pictures of them being taken down.  It would have been pretty interesting to see.

Here it is with the wall forms taken down.  Can you tell the difference between this pic and the one before?  And look, there are two windows!

Here is the inside.  It looks a lot bigger than it actually is!

All that water in there has to dry out before we can pour the basement slab .  Who knows how long that will take!  It is supposed to rain/snow tomorrow.  Ugh!

The Foundation Walls December 1, 2009

Today the foundation walls were poured.  The concrete guys started to form the walls during the rain yesterday morning, then had to stop because the rain was falling too heavily.  They finished up this morning and poured the concrete around noon.

The walls formed and ready for pouring.

Isn’t that weird, there’s actually a door there!

The men pouring the concrete.

I thought you might want to see another picture of the view I took this afternoon.  It isn’t great but I decided to post it.

A Beautiful Day November 29, 2009

So sad, nobody showed up to do any work on Friday and there’s a 50% chance of rain tomorrow so probably nobody will show up tomorrow either .

It was so beautiful and warm today, 69 degrees!  Everything is all nice and dried out for the rain tomorrow.  We went over to the house site and I took some better pictures of the footers.  Here they are!

Here are some pictures of us crawling around in the dirt .

Climbing up mountains is hard work!

Sliding down dirt hills is fun!!

If you’re climbing up mountains you usually need a boost!

Gotta shake out that dirt!

And this is ME! This picture is here because I am an obedient daughter.

Until something happens on the house, goodbye!

The Footers November 27, 2009

A big step yesterday (Wednesday); the concrete subcontractors formed and poured the footers.

Even though it has been raining on and off for the past couple of weeks we still managed to pour the concrete.  The loader had to pull out the concrete truck because it was so slick and the truck was stuck in the mud.

The loader

This is while they were in the process of pouring the concrete.  Hopefully, they will form the walls on Friday, then pour concrete on Monday.