Two steps forward, one step back

Rocks encountered during excavation of the crawl space.
We are going to use them when we get to the landscaping portion of the project!

One of the rocks is big enough for 3 people.

It's been a slow month.

For the record, we've had the following slow-downs:

1.  Rain.
2.  More dirt on the site than anticipated (the surveyor didn't calculate the volume of dirt we'd be excavating for the crawl space, b/c by report he thought we were building atop a slap, not a crawl space....guess he didn't get a look at the plans that were drawn since November) so we had to find a "home" for 14 truckloads of dirt.  That took -- weeks.  It ended up in Woodstock of all places.  Let us know how it looks, Shelly!
3.  One concrete subcontractor had to be replaced after he indicated he wouldn't be available for at least two weeks (we'd lost our window with him due to the dirt delay above).
4.  General slowness, slight inattentiveness.

This week, after watching Mon/Tues/Wed pass by (sunny, warm days, mind you) with nary a truck or worker on the site, I had to call Cara, our architect, as well as the Cablik folks to find out what was going on.  As Cara described it, we had a "come to Jesus" meeting with all parties involved where we worked out how to move the project along despite issues 1-4 above.

The very next day, it was a virtual Turkish Bazaar of activity on the site.  Bobcats were moving earth around, concrete guys were preparing the retaining wall (more on that later: it'll require its very own blog entry on "working with/around your neighbors"), and geo-thermal drilling was beginning!  See below:

Finally, Benjamin would be perfectly satisfied if what we have now is the finished product.  He loves the dirt, the dirt clods, the dirt piles, the mud on his shoes/pants/socks.

This boy loves to toss dirt clods into the foundation space.

concrete evidence

We finally have some semblance of a structure added to the field of dirt/clay/mud.

Are those Triceratops bones in there?  Nope, this is the beginnings of our foundation.  A groove and some holes are dug for the footings.

The footings were poured/placed on Day 2.

Finally, after the forms were positioned and secured, concrete was poured within them to form the engineered walls which will.....hold up the house!

Benjamin and I have had fun checking on the progress.

Now that we have a basic foundation, I think the next steps will include

1)  a 5' retaining wall to hold back the wall-of-earth to our south
2) seven 250' deep geothermal wells
and
3) pouring the slab for the garage

Framing is supposed to start on May 1st.  We'll see about that...

piece(s) of dirt

The site development is almost done, and we're amazed at how much soil could be scraped from the front yard to create a pad for the house, and also for a flat backyard.  In retrospect, even if the oak tree in front had been healthy, it would never have worked out with this site plan.

On Wednesday, they begin the install of the foundation.  

Let's hope we have another rain-free week.  

We were surprised that the diggers were out both days this weekend.  

Guess they aren't Irish!

What we've been up to this week

Given that this project has drained us of all $, we used our week off as a(nother) stay-cation.  Actually, it was very nice, and I'm sad that the week is just about done.

The week off did afford us the chance to watch, closely, the progress with the building site.  It really is moving along quickly, as evidenced by the video below:

If that's too painful (or too grainy) you can just look at this photo:

We have also occupied ourselves by looking around for closet systems and for a light for our dining room.  In our naiveté, we'd imagined that closets are just "rooms" with bars for hangars, and a shelf or two for old college sweatshirts.  Little did we know that there are fierce allegiances and rivalries within the world of closets:

On the one hand:  IKEA

They offer a PAX system for your closet which is at least as entertaining to create on their website as they are nice, with sliding doors to keep order to the chaos.  Still, it's IKEA and the hinges will probably crumble within 6 months, right?

This is one "unit" that I created on their website.   You can easily add/remove components as you see fit.

On the other hand:

elfa (via the Container Store)

This is more like the organizers you see in nerdy people's garages so that the paintbrushes all stand up nicely, the screwdrivers are all arranged by race/creed/gender, etc.  But the modules are pretty nice and it keeps everything in its place:

These systems look fine as long as you stay organized.  
So, they could be a challenge for us.

These systems are great if all you own are green, brown, and beige clothes!

What a difference a couple of days makes!

The word "demolition" doesn't quite sum up what's been going on our property over the past 2 days.  

Benjamin loves to drive by the property so that he can watch all of the huge trucks doing their thing.  Despite the noise, or because of it, he is entranced for 10-15 minutes at a time.  

So....that happened.

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Where did the house go?

Here we go!

Well, the port-o-potty must signify something.  We'll call it progress!

Theoretically, this week we get the old home demolished.

The orange plastic roll-out fence and silt barrier were placed this weekend, so now we can cut proceed with the demolition and site development.  

Benjamin had to check it out today to make sure it all met his expectations.  And by the way, there were snowflakes out today!