It's Foundation Time!

The footings were poured last week, and today the foundation is going in. I had no idea how this process worked until I went to the lot today to take a look.

Here's a good view of the forms they use to hold the cement.













You can see the height that this gives the house in the back. The top of the form that is closest in the picture is where our basement floor will be (I think.)













Again, a view from the front curb.

Footings!

We're making some progress on the house! Last week Steve had the footings done. These pictures show several views of of the lot at that point.

Here's the front curb showing where our house will be...someday.













This is a good (front) view of the footings, all ready for the foundation.













This is a view of the back of the lot, from the intersection behind it.

Good Intentions

My intention with this blog was to document the process Jake and I take as we journey into building our first home. I keep waiting for us to make some progress before I start documenting. Now that I can see how slow progress is, I've decided to catch up and keep up on my blogging.

Last May we sold the house I bought before we got married. We used the profit to buy land and hoped to start building last June.

Long story short, we got our plans finished a few days before Halloween. We immediately applied for a building permit and construction loan. The loan is coming along, but the permit has caused a few problems.

We staked out the lot and the city inspector came to double check things. (There's an easement on the lot, and the buildable area is fairly small.) The inspector informed us that the easement was not properly marked on the lot plan. This meant that the line indicating the buildable area needed to be pulled in ten feet more. We really like the floorplan and don't want that to change. So, we did the only thing we could do. We cut out the 3rd car garage and shortened the roofline so it doesn't cover the deck. It's not our first ideal, but we easily changed our expectations and we're very happy with it.

The new hope is to have the land excavated and the footings and framing finished before Thanksgiving. It's always good to have a goal.

I guess this is the date that I actually set up this blog. Life got real busy!