March 31 - Forms removed

Today, the forms were taken off the concrete, so we now have walls!

Looking at the front area from near the driveway. Note the shelf like part running around the front of the wall about 3/4 of the way up the wall. That's where the bricks will rest (dirt is not a very stable platform).

View of the garage area. You can see the brick ledge on the right side of the picture.

The brick shelves step down and around this corner to follow the final terrain.

While it may have looked like the brick shelf / ledge was at the same height around the house in the other pictures, that's not the case. Rather, since the bricks will begin just below ground level and the grade slopes about 7 feet down from the northeast corner to the southwest corner, the ledges have to step down as the elevation decreases. This stepping is particularly noticeable at the northwest corner where the ground will drop off the fastest.

Throughout, you might think, "hey, if the walls are up what's up with that gap between the wall and the dirt?" Well that space has a number of uses. Currently we're considering either 1) filling the space with water to make a moat which would hold sharks with friggin' laser beams, or 2) water-proofing the walls before filling back in the dirt. I'm in favor of 1), but I think we're ultimately going with 2.

Looking southwest out of the basement. Garage wall to the left. The space I'm standing in will eventually become storage.

Looking back into the basement (northeast), effectively the reverse view of the previous photo. From this perspective, it looks like a huge basement (is is 2000 ft), but it looks kinda claustophobic from the other angle.

Rebar sticking up through the concrete. I figure it's there to help anchor the framing.

Click to read more.

March 30 - Concrete and Silt Fence

On Monday, the concrete for the basement walls was poured in the forms and the silt fence went up. Plus the amended permit was reposted (amended to clear up a confusion on the lien agent).

View near the main entrance. You can see a little bit of the rebar sticking up through the top.

Looking out over the dining room (closest) entrance (square in middle-right) and great room (farthest away).

To handle the slope of the land, the garage will be a couple feet lower than the rest of the main level.

View from the driveway over the forms.

My shadow extends onto some interior supports which were also poured on Monday.

View of the silt fence (southwest) from just outside of the soutwest corner of the basement.

Silt fence wrapping around the eventual drain field.

View from silt fence back towards the house and Preethi. The silt fence is actually set back quite a bit from the house (large drain field).

The permit as amended on 3/8/8 (click to enlarge I'm pretty certain that's an error, but it amuses me, so I posted it). The no trespassing sign (and others) was put up to discourage hunting after we found a pair of deer carcasses. Turns out its a neighbor kid who's been known to shoot deer in other neighbor's yards as well. Wouldn't have bothered us if he hadn't left the carcasses. There's a valuable insight there for dynamic spectrum access somewhere in there.

Click to read more.

March 27 - Forms Finish Going Up

In between the rain storms, the interior walls for the forms went up on Friday with concrete to be poured in between the forms to create the basement walls on Monday.

Forms on North Side of Garage

If you look closely, you can see the rebar between the forms that will be help reinforce the concrete.

Looking southwest. The wood braces (not angled) seem to be there to help provide horizontal bracing.

Interior walls looking southwest. The walls are braced with the wood beams to hold the concrete while it cures. While the southwest side looks incomplete, it’s actually done (from a forms perspective) as the portions above ground will have framed walls rather than poured (concrete) walls which are being used below-grade (and a little bit above).

Click to read more.

March 25 - Forms Start to Go Up

Construction of the forms (for pouring the basement walls) started today. The forms had to come from another site and it began to rain in the afternoon, so setting up the forms isn't done, but there's enough up to look interesting.

Looking at the forms from the driveway.

Looking back to the North and East. (The South and West sides of the basement will be level with the ground and will be framed instead.)

Closeup of some form supports.

Forms around the garage.

Close up of the interior of a form wall.

The truck that (presumably) brought in the forms and a fresh pile of gravel.

Click to read more.

March 23 - Gravel poured

On Monday (23rd) the gravel that was beside the port-a-john was spread out in the basement. This necessitated building a small ramp down to the front of the basement (there was an existing ramp on the back).

The basement filled with gravel. Except for the covered entryway area which is not.

Looking back towards the road (north). The dirt ramp can be seen in the top left and the gravel can be seen more clearly here.

Preethi poses in front of the gravel filled basement.

So much fun before, here's some more pics from around the lot.

Silver wades into the stream. Frequently, he'll lie down in the stream and start snapping at the water in an impression of what Preethi calls "Crocadog" and I call "Hippodogamus"

That random circular piece of concrete? That's a well. If we have a son, he will NOT be named Timmy.

Electrical hookup on the lot, it's kinda on the northwest corner of the lot (end of the cul-de-sac). Currently the electicity bill goes straight to the builder.

Fritz, Silver, and I walk down a trail that parallels the stream.

Click to read more.

March 21 - Some material delivered

It rained hard and then remained wet for a while so not much happened. Specifically, the wooden supports for the footers were removed. But then it looks a lot like it did before.

Footers near the entrance.

Footer detail.

Some material got delivered, though.

Perhaps the most important piece of construction equipment.

Some forms for the basement walls.

Gravel for the basement floor (concrete to be poured over the gravel)

Random pictures of the land

Since so little was done over the week, we took some random pictures of the land.

Our stream.

A bridge over our stream to our field. That's also our ridge in the back. 6.2 acres is a lot of space.

And here's a pictures of Silver (left) and Fritz (right) in the field across the bridge.

And here's Silver saying hi to Beowulf - a neighbor dog. Lots of dogs in the neighborhood. At least on our street, there's about twice as many dogs as houses.

Click to read more.

March 12 - Footers Poured

The forms are all complete, the driveway is done, and the concrete for the footers have been poured. The foundation walls (and all the exterior walls for that matter) will end up sitting on the footers and the concrete slab will be poured up to them. There's actually a bit more involved in a footer than this indicates (i.e., beyond the concrete and wood, there's a vapor barrier, mesh, gravel, and rebar for reinforcement).

Low level view of footers. On the main level, looking from back to front on the left side, bedroom4, dining room foyer, great room.

Low level view of the footers at the front of the house. Eventually, the main entrance will be about 2.5 feet off the ground.

Detail of the garage footer.

Stones for the temporary driveway is now spread out (making it functional) with excess concrete on the stones.

Front left of footers (bedroom 4 on main + garage).

Footers at the entrance looking back to the garage.

Wilbert (who Preethi used to report to), the dogs, and Preethi (somewhat hidden by Wilbert) look at the footers. We bring people out to the lot... a lot. In fact, we like showing the lot so much, we made a blog!

At the garage looking down the slope at the back of the house. We're walking down to the stream to show Wilbert the rest of the lot.

Dirt pile looking down the farm road. You can kinda see the acre or so clearing through the trees in the top left of the photo.

Click to read more.