| Went out to the site to do some weekend clean up. Kids had thrown dirt clods down onto the new concrete. They'd also ran a pair of garbage can wheels around and left some scrapes. So we swept out the dirt, Mark removed the forms from around the hot tub pad, did some scraping of the tops of the footings in preparation for the framers coming on Wednesday, chipped some of the uneven spots off the stone steps, and general site cleanup. No serious or actual damage was done and I'm staying focused on that. There is so much that they could have potentially done. |
| Our first load of lumber has been delivered. |
| Another reason I love my husband: Into the wet concrete, inside the doorway of the workshed, he placed a perfect maple leaf. It left a beautiful impression of the leaf on the floor. I love that he thought to do this. I forgot to bring my camera, so I'll post a picture later. |
| Today they poured our basement slab! Check out the pictures! We're on schedule to start framing next week!!!! Yahoo!!!! |
| We're back on a schedule. We should be pouring the basement slab on Wednesday (weather & inspection permitting!). Mark has to do some compacting of the dirt inside before the concrete is poured, and put down all the insulation on the dirt so we won't have a dank, wet basement. |
| The rockery supporting the patio is done along with the stairs down to the lower level. The excavator saved 10 good 'step' rocks out of the rock pile for that and they look great! The also saved a large 'monument' rock that we'll use at the head of the driveway for our name/address sign. It may also just have the name of the house. Yes, we've been trying to name the house, we've been working on it for a while, but nothing was really fitting or not sounding too pretentious (OK, maybe just the fact that we are naming the house is pretentious, but too bad). Anyway, we took some art to be framed at the Michael's 70% off sale and one of the pieces that we want to frame is a picture of the house that Mark's mum grew up in. While we were talking about it, Mark mentioned that it was on a farm named 'Cold Stream Ranch.' So we think we're gonna name it Cold Stream Ridge. |
| Went the 'Luxury Home Tour' at Trilogy off Novelty Hill road in Redmond. Five houses from 1.2 - 1.7 million. Nice homes, but about 5ft from each other, half the size of our house, tiny lots, and virtually no storage except the garage and the closets in each room. There were lots of nice features of the houses, but it wasn't what we wanted. Saw some nice design elements, but nothing earth shattering. EXCEPT, I almost forgot! I got to sit in my tub! The overflow tub was in one of the homes, and I've really been wanting to try the tub before we bought it. I hopped in, it's really comfortable, got a good reclining angle, and it's long enough. Very, very happy about the tub. It's a tad more modern looking than I thought, but still really good. Also got to see the Waterhaven shower head installed. We were sorely tempted to lock the door to the bathroom and try it out, but we didn't think that would fly.... Also got the see the ceiling filler for the tub in action (over the 7K tub that I'm not getting). Yes, the square is a better look, but way too expensive. Overall, it was a nice reminder that yes, we really love what we're creating at our house, how we've really planned the space well for how we live, and if those houses were that expensive, ours will probably be worth more than we think. Well, we can hope for that. Plus, it won't matter as we're both going to do everything in our power to make sure we get to keep the house. |
| I finally got to visit the site today. Lots of work! They did a rockery all the way along the side of the driveway and the side of the house. Originally we didn't think we could walk around the side of the house next to the garage. Then we were going to have stairs and a raised path along the side. Now we have a 5ft walkway next to the house! Check out the pictures! |
| Lots of work over the last few days. We finally got the foundation waterproofed, we've started to backfill the foundation, the under-slab plumbing is getting done, we've started to do the rockeries around the back (patio side) of the house. We decided to do them while the excavator can still drive in the garage and reach the back side of the house. It will be easier to do it now, rather then after the house is done. |
| The excavator is back and installs our construction road! Yeah! |
| It's still raining, so no waterproofing yet. =( |
| Our plumber comes out to the site. His comment is "I'm gonna love working on this house" once he finds out he won't have to work in a crawl space, and that we designed the house for the mechanical stuff, including the chaseway that runs from the basement to the top floor. This is good, we want a happy plumber! |
| Mark & Jean head out to the site. Jean does clean-up, while Mark finished doing the interior drainage around the footings. |
| We also buy our hot tub!!! We spent a day at the Home Show and got yapped at by 5 different spa salesmen. Ugh. We finally decided on a Clearwater spa and went and 'wet tested' it out. ahhhhhhh, haven't been in a hot tub since Mark moved out of the boathouse. |
| Of course, it's nice and sunny on Sunday, a day the waterproofer doesn't work. |
| Mark has spent the last few days at the site, doing the footing drains and prepping the site. We're still trying to get the waterproofing done, but the weather isn't cooperating. It looks like it's going to be sunny early next week, but Mark already drained all the water away from around the footings and now it's gonna rain again. Mark may also have to 'hand-dry' the concrete by using a tiger torch. Behind, still. We are moving forward, but slowly. |
| Mark spends all day at the site working on the footing drains and cutting off all the nail bolts. Determines the waterproofer can make it all around the site with his 200 ft hose, so we don't have to have a construction road. This is good news since our excavator's wife just had a baby and so he's not really available. |
| The waterproofer is scheduled to come tomorrow, weather permitting. It was wet today and yesterday morning, but then cleared up in the afternoon so we're hoping that that will continue tomorrow. |
| Met with the excavator and our building consultant at the site. We need to have the waterproofing done, we need to have the footing drains installed, we need to knock all off the nail bolts out of the concrete, we need a construction road. Mark spent all day at the site working on doing the footing drains. |