Starting the foundation

After pouring the footings, now we get to start on the foundation. This is Jeff, one of the two brothers doing our foundation, starting to build up the forms to pour the foundation. He is standing under what will be the dining room. Notice we're no longer wearing T-shirts to work in; the ambient temperature for the last week has been low-40's. And yes that is standing water inside the footings (just a few inches).

The other brother, Mark, is putting twist ties on the rebar crosspieces, a few feet down from where Jeff was standing in the other picture. There is a huge amount of metal going in to that foundation, clearly.

We will talk to the engineer tomorrow when he gets back from hunting, about the west end of the basement. Because of the slope of the hill, the foundation wall may need to be 11 or 12 feet tall at that end of the basement, and we will need to work out whether it is all concrete or framed wall.

In local weather news, there is already 3 feet of snow in the mountains above 4.000 feet elevation and Crystal Mountain ski area opened for the season 5 days ago. Here's hoping the snow doesn't get down to 1500 feet for awhile!

The footings are poured

We poured the footings (the cement at the bottom of the foundation) on Wed (11/4/09)! Now that the footings are poured, there's no stopping us now!
This is a corner of the footing in the basement for the masonry heater, that I carved the date and put my handprint on. Too bad the kids were in school and couldn't put their hands on as well. I'm told this will be visible in the basement.

Here is the cement truck, from our neighbor Walt Miles (Miles Sand and Gravel). We poured 4 truckloads of cement today, 10 cubic yards per truck, you do the calculations, but it's a lot of concrete, all of which was pumped uphill by the pumper-guy (white pick-up at the left, with pipes heading uphill). The guy who held the other end of the pipe was a very strong kid.

This is the footing for the east wing of the house, which will have a 3' crawl space under the house. The center part of the house has a full basement, you can see the forms at the right side of this photo.

This is a photo of the garage footings; the guys were taking off the forms already, a mere 6 hours after pouring the cement, and it had already hardened! The ambient temperature was around mid-50's, but the cement was already so hard they could pound on it with hammers. Amazing stuff!

I am so happy we have the footings poured. Now the weather won't affect us as much, now that the footings are in!

Mud Butt

We have been keeping our fingers crossed that the weather would hold and not get too wet too soon. After a very dry summer and September, we started getting a little rain off and on about 2 weeks ago, turning the homesite into a much muddier place. We have piles and piles of dirt and topsoil stored under plastic sheets trying to keep them from washing away.
This is a picture of what happened to Becky's backside today while visiting the site after yesterday's rainfall (thus the title Mud Butt). The next picture is the front view (note the muddy left hand - the blaze orange is because it is hunting season and James thought my brown coat might be mistaken for wildlife):

I was next to the home site taking pictures, and stepped into mud that turned out to be nearly quicksand (while holding a phone in one hand and the camera in the other, so I figured when I needed a 3 point landing my seat was the best option!) James didn't warn me how bad the mud was...

This is the main part of the (future) basement, waiting for the inspector before pouring the footings (ie the base of the concrete walls); after the footings are poured we get another inspection before the walls are poured (and of course the County gets paid every time they come out for an inspection..) As you can see, it started raining 2 weeks ago and the basement is not nearly as dry as it used to be. It turns out there is actually a small spring in the NE corner of the house (a dry spot in the basement that started getting wet before the rain started; it's located under the future laundry room, how fitting!)

I convinced Patrick to climb down into the "basement", so I could use him as a foreground prop for pictures. The wall behind him is the same wall that I posted a picture of Katie in front of (the picture she had a red bathrobe on). It's starting to look a little different.

The short stretch of driveway from the logging road (the landing) to the homesite measures 16% grade, it turns out, which is too steep for many vehicles. Our Jeep has made it up; the concrete truck can't, so will park on the landing and pump the concrete up the last stretch. We will have to figure out something before we need more trucks coming (like the lumber delivery, the roofer, delivering the bathtub and bathroom fixtures, eventually the piano..)