The foundation is in!

This is called "hurricaine strapping". It's a piece of metal embedded in the foundation that gets bolted to the house.

pouring the front of the foundation

It has been truly amazing to see everything that has gone into the foundation for this house! On Monday (Aug. 30), the crew began pouring the foundation. Inside the forms was the most complicated web of rebar I have ever seen. It runs vertically up from the ledge, through the fittings, and all the way up through the foundation, which is about 9 feet tall (of course, that's if you get in the hole, it will not be that high above ground!). This is repeated every few feet. Then there's more rebar that connects those peices horizontally in some places. I'm pretty sure that it's the best-built foundation in the city!

The footings are in!

The last four days of torrential rain have taken their toll on my sanity...I actually cheered when I saw the cement truck this morning! The foundation crew was back to work today and poured the concrete for the footings, which is what the foundation will rest on. They'll be back tomorrow to set up the forms for the foundation itself. Progress! Unfortunately, due to the rain delay, the set is no longer scheduled for this weekend; we are hoping now for next Friday or Saturday. The house is coming up from Pennsylvania this week (it will be stored until the set crew is ready for it). So if you see a house on the highway, it might be ours!

It's us vs. the ledge

The forms sitting on the ledge

The good news:  the land is clear, and there is a huge hole where the house will be. The bad news: the excavation crew hit the ledge that runs beneath the lot. Back on the good news side, they were able to dig to the necessary depth, so no blasting will be required. It turns out that it is not a terrible thing for the house to be situated on the ledge, it just complicates things (and increases the cost!). The crew spent the morning uncovering the ledge with shovels and brooms so that the foundation guys would be able to start their work. As of this afternoon, we have some of the forms for the footings in the ground, but as you can see from the pictures, there isn't a level surface beneath them. The foundation crew will have to spend some time custom-making extensions for the forms before they can pour in the cement. Hopefully by Tuesday the footings will be done. The house is due to be set and delivered on Saturday, August 28, which is only a week from tomorrow! But there is so much still to be done that we're not quite convinced that they'll be able to keep that date. We have some video of the clearing process, and if we can ever figure out how to get it off the memory card and into the computer, we'll post some of it so you can see for yourself. Plans for the weekend: packing!

Clearing the land

The first tree coming down

This weekend was very exciting - the excavator and crew showed up on Saturday morning to begin clearing the land. We watched all day as trees, shrubs, vines, and old appliances were hauled out. We've found some interesting stuff - old bottles, tires, and even an old washing machine! It's been there so long it has actually fallen apart. It took us a while to even figure out what it was. As exciting as it was, I admit to being a little sad that the place my sisters & I used to play was no more; I am also feeling a degree of "environmental guilt" over cutting down all those trees. Once the house is up we'll plant some new ones to replace those that we had to get rid of. By now the crew is almost done clearing, and they are supposed to start digging for the foundation today. I am very nervous about this part. There is a granite ledge that runs beneath the property, and there's no way to know how far down it is until they start digging down. If they hit ledge where the foundation needs to be that is not a good thing. So keep your fingers crossed for us please! The kids & I are headed out in a little while to watch the crew work...Hopefully the next post will be about the foundation.

view from what will be the backyard out to the street

Taking out logs

We've got the Permit!

Finally, the building permit has been issued! It has been several frustrating weeks of waiting, and we are now about 3 weeks behind schedule. The good new is the clearing of the land is due to begin tomorrow. We'll post some pictures of that soon. In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the view we'll haveof Mt. Hope Bay.

The Penney Project begins

Well, I am going to borrow a page out of my sister-in-law Christy's book, and try one of these blog things to keep everyone informed about our house building project. By now you all know that we're planning to build our first house. We've picked out the style (colonial), the floor plan, and all the details. Now here we are in July, and we're waiting to start the actual construction phase of the project. We had hoped to have the building permit this week, but the city inspector remebered Molly's parents' lot (which is right next door) had issues with errosion a few years back, so he wants testing done before he will issue the permit. No permit, no work. So we're waiting. Hopefully we'll be able to get an engineer out to the lot next week. Here are a few pictures of what we're starting with. The top one is the view from the street, and the second is from Molly's parents' yard.