Building a House - Week Four

Week four started off slow with no activity Monday through Thursday. Then, on Friday the foundation crew set up all of the basement wall forms in just one day. Poured concrete basement walls are a very efficient process these days. The forms are essentially a large scale, aluminum lego set. As a result they go up fast and the aluminum surface results in a very smooth concrete wall when the forms are removed. The concrete trucks should be arriving next week to pour the walls!




Sophia and Dad.





View from front of house.





The forms accommodate vertical rebar as well as horizontal aluminum strips that create the "skeleton" for the concrete.





Lower view of the house. This side of the basement wall will be built from lumber just like the rest of the house. This is where side of the basement that will feature "man land" and walk out to a lower patio.





-Craig

Happy Birthday Anna Kate!

On Saturday we celebrated Anna Kate's 6th birthday with 8 of her "princess colleagues". In typical form we overcomplicated the event by squeezing too many games, prizes, gifts, and of course multiple inflatable bounce toys.


Anna and crew posing for a pic just before lighting the candles.


Make a wish!


Laura made the cake from scratch. Yeah, you can buy a cake for $40 or you can spend 8+ hours baking from scratch in the last hours leading up to the big event. This was one of those moments when I was forced to consider the overall value of our marriage versus my impulse to call this a waste of time. (I still love how the cake turned out, LB!)


Anna got her first American Girl doll from Mom and Dad.


My personal favorite each year is the pinata. This year it was a princess castle (of course).

Craig

New House - Week 3

After week three we now have the concrete footers poured. The site doesn't look all that different from the previous week, however you can now see the outline of the perimeter of the house. This stage presents an optical illusion that makes it look like you are building a club house for kids. There is no familiar size references. We are reminding ourselves that if a large bulldozer can move around within our basement then it is probably bigger than we think!


View from the front-right corner of the house.


View from across the street. This gives a pretty good sense of how many trees we have been able to preserve on the lot.

Week Two: digging the foundation

The second week brought a lot of changes to the site. First they burned all the tree tops. This of course resulted in one or two complaints from the residents of Norris but that was to be expected. We Norrisonians like to voice our opinions loudly. Luckily the city office did not revoke our burn permit and we were able to finish burning. The day after they finished burning Herman said they would start digging the basement. I arrived at the lot around 12:30 and they already had the septic tank in and were digging the drain field. They also had about a fourth of the basement dug. When I returned at 4:30 they were finished!


The controversial burn pile



She's a blazin'.



Anna standing in the basement.



Anna is in what will hopefully become my dance/exercise room someday.



Laura and Sophia checking out the big hole.



Look at them muscles!



Anna and Evan on the big cat.



Karate chop!



Standing in the basement.



The big hole.



Oh, I mustn't forget the drain field. Yes, that's where the "you know what" goes on its long journey.

Clearing the Lot - Day Two

Wow, in just 1 1/2 days a single bulldozer has taken out over 30 trees and put hundreds of squirrels out of a home. Good thing we are installing a security system as we are probably "blacklisted" within the local rodent community. It is amazing how different the lot looks without the trees. I say it looks more level, Laura says it looks more sloped. Let the fights begin!

I must say that the excavation team has done a great job so far removing only the trees needed without damaging the ones we wanted to keep. Doughnuts for all Friday morning!!!

"The Roots"



"Got wood?"

No seriously, do you?... I will be giving away firewood for the rest of the year. You can have all you can haul off.

Our new address. Can you imagine... not one company has us in their marketing database! We're off the grid!



First thing's first... Big Al dropped off the "blue lagoon". I don't recall seeing this on the cost estimate! - do we really have to pay for the shitter!? I assume we will get to keep it as a memento. It should be pointed out that we had numerous meetings with our designer to settle on color palette and textures. We felt strongly that the port-a-pot would set the tone for our new home. Stay tuned for more blue, plastic, and industrial air refreshener puck flavors.




BIG CAT!



This big cat made short work of many 100ft trees.




Sophia surveying the job with Dad ("Dad" not pictured, but trust me the baby isn't floating through the woods on her own).

Let's build a house!

Anna's 2nd year of baseball

This year we took baseball very seriously.



When she wasn't volunteering to sit out an inning, she actually played very well.






This is year Anna began hitting without a tee. Her patience has greatly improved over the past year. In her first season we had lots of crying if she didn't hit the ball, didn't catch the ball, didn't get to touch the ball, didn't get her clothes dirty, you get the picture.









On deck.