August Fields

beginning to frame the house

this may seem somewhat uneventful for most but this is a way for me to journal the progress of our house 🙂 here the basement is beginning to be framed. the big box on the left is the garage. it will be filled with dirt, and then cemented. the notch at the front of the screen on the garage is the first stall.

here i am standing in the back of the house. the white square to the right is the window in the guest bedroom. this is the basement and the framing is coming right along! 🙂
this is the following day…i am standing facing the opposite way than the picture above. deanie (in the green shirt) is in the guest bedroom. the steel beams and posts were set. exterior of basement walls were finished and the floor joists were started! way in the back to the right where you see wood leaning against the cement wall in the shape of the letter “A” is the playroom.
whew! then yesterday the floor joists were finished and the baseboard laid for the mainlevel and you can see they started framing the garage! we drove up tonite and i forgot my camera but the garage is all framed in…now.

an observation mr. daddy and i have both made is that the size of the house during the different phases of building is so deceiving! sometimes the house seems huge…other times i think “how can this little square be a bedroom?” then the walls go up and you get get a better “feel”…….

as far as ‘selections’ and decisions…right now we have to narrow down our kitchen appliances. we had to have a pretty firm cabinet layout for the kitchen done at this point as well….which we have 🙂
so far we are loving this process, not feeling overwhelmed and just enjoying! 🙂 we would love to be a good example of working together through the house-building process. i’m pretty sure we’ll survive! 🙂 🙂

basement walls are poured

shirtless men ahead…avert your eyes! *smile*

first the forms for the basement walls were set up. the following day the cement trucks rolled in and the walls were poured (kinda loud and dusty!). the kids LOVE watching the trucks!!!

the next day the forms were taken off and waterproofing was added to a section of the walls. i know that some sort of foam has been adhered to a section on the outside of the walls as well but we haven’t been up to the house today…so no pics of that.
we are all so excited because monday the workers start framing!
on a side note this past week i had to have the plumbing fixtures chosen for the tubs and showers. at the same time i also picked out fixtures for other areas of the house (the kids’ bathrooms, schoolroom, basement bathroom) just to check it off the list!

excavating

last week the excavators were out digging the hole! i drove the kids up to the property and they had so much fun playing in the HUGE piles of dirt……or volcanoes as they call them 🙂

of course a dirt slide came of it all.
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the two workers, who are brothers, turned off the machines, walked over and asked if the kiddos each wanted a turn driving the excavator and taking a scoop. they were so patient and kind and surely made yet another awesome memory for the kids.
of course mama had to have a turn! 🙂
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we went back that night as a family and each put a shovel full of dirt into a mason jar. not sure the exact reasoning for this but i thought it would be a fun memory and the kids could remember scooping dirt from an area that will be under the house. 🙂

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breaking ground

omyword! what a difference clearing a ton of trees and moving dirt makes! everything seems so real now 🙂

today the excavator finished clearing the trees and started moving the dirt around and grade the land a bit.
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if you look closely in this second picture you will see orange flags that mark the four corners of the house (okay…they’re really hard to see). i was surprised at how quickly trees come down and dirt moves when you have professionals on the job!
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i’ll try to keep the exclamation points to a minimum ……..this is the first time we have ever built a house. and Lord willing, the last.