The cup runneth over!!

Writing this blog somehow seems to have a positive effect on the building process.  Every time I have posted, there has then been a flurry of activity.  Thanks to the powers that be!  It has been a very busy week and I can hardly keep up with the day to day changes going on at the property.  I'm uploading new pictures every day.  

The main purpose in writing this blog is so that our family far away can see the progress on the house and so that someday if we ever decide to build again we can read this and change our minds we can look back on it and see how it all came together.  I have been posting the updates on Facebook, but I may stop doing that.  If you still want to keep up with what we are doing you can always subscribe.  :-)

Some people wonder why we are building this house in the first place.  We just have two kids at home now, one of which will be gone in a year (sniff.)  It will be a big place for the three of us left.  However, our intention is that eventually those kids will want to come back (wait, are we crazy to want them to come back?) and bring their kids.  Rather than have a vacation house somewhere, we decided that we just wanted to make our home... home.  That and the horse thing.  My dad should have known all those years ago that when I touched that first big velvet nose I was a goner!

So, here's the progress beginning Friday April 27:

The poison ivy is back.  I learned that you can't use a weed-eater on it.  You can't burn it.
You can use brush killer on it but you might hurt the tree.  I can tell that this is
going to be an on-going saga...

This is what the ground looks like below the concrete of a pier and beam foundation system

This is what happens when workers aren't careful with their power equipment.
Yep, those are plumbing lines.

Wednesday May 2:

Here's the repair.  You bet I am keeping track!

Here's Susie checking out the set-up:  Ready for concrete!

On Wednesday May 3, our project manager, who is a very young guy, called me.  When I saw his name on my caller ID I wondered... what now?  But he was just calling ME because Jim was out of town and he had to tell SOMEONE that they were going to pour the concrete the next day.  He was very excited.  I thought it was cute.

On Thursday morning, as Robert and I were watching for the bus from the front window of our current house, we saw a cement truck drive by on the main street by our neighborhood.  I said, "I wonder if that is going to our property."  He hopped on the bus and I hopped in the car.... and sho nuff...

When I got there, there were 8 cement trucks on site.
The foreman told me they had ordered 20 trucks.

What a glorious sight!  The hallelujah chorus was playing in my head.

It really was amazing to watch this team work together.  Everyone had a specific job.

I wasn't quite as close as this picture appears, but when I started to get splattered
by concrete I decided I should probably step back a bit...

These pictures were taken at about 8:20 am.  They told me the concrete would be
completely poured by 10:30 am and hard enough to walk on by 4 pm.

I'll bet you didn't know that it takes about 3 1/2 minutes to empty a cement truck.
I found this online when I googled...The average capacity of a standard cement mixer truck is around 8-9 cubic yards (216-243) cubic feet. Lots of people think that it is 9 cubic yards, hence the expression "the whole nine yards."

Later that day...

Monday May 7:

The wood is delivered!

Rooms marked off with treated lumber

Today, May 8, 2012... I was very surprised when I drove up and saw how much they had actually framed!  

It is going to be hard to take pictures that actually mean anything to anyone else for awhile since they all look basically the same.  

Tomorrow we meet with the builder to talk about how things are progressing... as in what might be a projected completion date.  Not that we're anxious or anything!