Ground Breaking

Well, my friends.  It finally happened.  We broke ground last week on our new farmhouse, and I’ve been in a state of surreal excitement since then.  Here’s a quick breakdown of the building process so far:

Day 1 (Tuesday, 4/10/18):  They skimmed off all the topsoil in the building area.  Afterward, they staked all the corners and bump-outs, and basically laid the house out.  They also marked the setbacks, where they will be digging next.

Chad and I had to make some decisions about how we wanted our back patio to look since it wasn’t drawn on our plan.

Day 2 (Wednesday, 4/11/18):  They dug a very big hole in the ground.  We will hopefully, one day, call this hole “the basement”.

Day 3 (Thursday 4/12/18):  The hole got deeper today as they fully finished excavating the basement.

Our first unexpected change came about when Chad and I noticed that they excavated the entire area under our front/side porch.  Our builder wanted to do it this way because the angle of the hill the house sits on.  Since it was already dug out with the rest of the basement, we asked if we could turn the space under the porch into additional basement storage.  They were just going to fill it back up with stones and concrete after they poured the walls, and it seemed a shame to waste the extra space.

Our builder only had to make a few minor adjustments to allow for this: First, planning for a door in the wall to the room under the porch.  Also, he made a note that the ceiling material would need to change to metal decking to support the concrete that will be poured over it for the porch floor.  And lastly, adding insulation to this space to prevent “raining in your basement” (as our builder put it) and other condensation issues.

Also done today, A silt sock was placed around the perimeter of the building site to help prevent erosion and drainage issues while the team is working over the next months and making a big muddy mess.

Day 4 (Friday 4/13/18):  It was an exciting day with lots of “TRACTORS!” as our almost-three-year-old daughter calls all the heavy construction machinery.  She really loves tractors.  They brought in a backhoe to dig trenches for the footers.

We got to the site just in time to watch the cement truck and pump truck work together to pour concrete into the basement.  Evie loved it and when we came back later that night to check out the progress, she informed me sadly that all the tractors were gone.

Today was really neat because, by the end of the day, we could really see the layout of the house and get a feel for how it’s going to look eventually.  I’m still in a state of awe and have been feeling oddly humbled and very blessed.

The area shown below will be the basement area under the porch.

Day 5 (Saturday 4/14/18):  Not much work will be done most weekends, but someone came in to set the pins where the poured walls will be in the basement.  We expect the basement walls to likely be done next week.

So there you have it.  One week down, many more to go.  It’s been a great start and I honestly have just been having so much fun with this process so far.