Poured walls completed

The basement walls were poured yesterday, and today they removed the forms. the walls are complete. Tomorrow they will put in the plumbing in the floor of the basement. The next work will be pouring the basement slab.

The first photo is taken looking down on the temporary electric pole. The pole with the transformer will remain there after construction is completed, but then the electric line will come underground to the house. I am standing just in front of where the garage will eventually be built. The front door of the house will be just about where the right wood brace on the temp electric pole points. As you walk in the front door, the kitchen will be in the corner on the left. There will be a screened porch going off to the left of the top of the wall.

In the second photo. I am standing about the same place, but looking down into the basement. That is a 12' poured wall, so the basement will have a very tall ceiling -- about 10' when we are finished. I am looking down into one of the bedrooms in the corner on the left and the play room is the part that sticks out in the front. Another bedroom is to the right of the play room.

In the third photo, I am standing about at ground level below the house looking at the same bedroom from the opposite angle. The rest of the walls in the basement will be framed up with wood.

Electricity was finally hooked up at the barn today. The waterline from the well at the barn to the tank in the barn and on to the garden plot was delayed because the electricity was not hooked up. Now it is scheduled for Friday.

Jason's post

I got my flipflops dirty at the farm. I helped fix the gate that Jeff broke. Brian helped me a little. Dad watched. Brian wanted to get new parts at Lowe's instead of Home Depot.

From Brian -- we fed the cows and the fish (Al is the albino catfish) and messed around so we wouldn't have to get back to the house and bathe the kids.

From Dad -- The photo is of the forming of the foundation poured walls. They will complete the forms on Monday and hopefully pour the walls later on Monday.

The water line from the barn well to the barn will be laid on Monday, also. They will also run the water line to the garden site -- 350' down the road.

We are all having a good time here at the house. Lots of activity with nine children -- all spending the night tonight.

Footings finally

It took two and a half weeks, but the footings are poured. First, there was the county inspector demanding a letter from an engineer that the footings would be on sound ground. Mind you that we excavated tons of dirt to pour the footing on very solid ground. After that we had to get back on the waiting list for the crew to return. When they did return a week ago, the pump truck arrived on time, but the cement truck got lost -- both from the same company!! By the time the cement truck arrived it started raining and he could not get to the top of the work site because the first inch or so of soil was very slick. So, finally on Monday they poured the footings.

We finally got a heavy rain last evening. My neighbor records all rainfall and that was the most rain we have received since March -- 2 inches. First time since March that any water has flowed into the ponds. The smaller one dried up a month ago and I had the dozer operator deepen it.

The rain caused some erosion problems and Ron and I worked on it tonight as the water was draining into the excavation and footings. The crew is scheduled to return on Friday to put up the forms for the poured walls. We are supposed to get the walls poured on Monday.

The photo is of the pump truck that pumps the cement from the cement truck and spreads it around the footing. The pump truck will be back for two more times-- the walls and then finally for the foundation. That's $550 a visit!!

We closed on our construction loan on Tuesday, so the clock is officially clicking.

New post

Family,

I am new at this, so hope this works for you to keep up with our house construction.

We are waiting on an engineering report before the county will OK the pouring of the footings. We are not pushing too hard because we don't have a construction loan yet!! Power lines are up and ready to connect to temporary pole and to barn. Need more work on electrical panel inside the barn before we can get inspection passed on the barn.

We have TWO wells: one at house site and one at the barn -- right where the fire ring was. Both wells are 200 feet deep. We are grateful that we got good water in both.

The back fence is finished, and we separated the cows and calves yesterday. There is much baying and moaning between the cows (with swollen udders) and the calves (separated from mommy), and I am sure our neighbor will be glad to hear that sweet music stopped in a couple days. I paid a neighbor to build the back fence. He and his son did it in about 30 hours. If I had continued doing it myself hiring a laborer to help me and taking the same amount of time, I would have saved $180 ONLY. That's about $6/hr for my time. It was definitely a bargain, and I am happy to have it done.

Mom saw this house in northern Maine on our trip and it is very similar to what we are going to build. This one has a prow on the front -- comes out to a point in the middle-- and ours will be flat across the front. I will figure out how to get the plans on this blog site. Where the garage doors are will be bedrooms in the basement.

Posting

I'm about to post w/o logging in.

This is great.

Do photos make it?