Day 240

Nearly 8 months into owning this property and building our forever home and we finally have some walls!

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I can’t begin to describe to you how excited I was to get in there and walk through the house.

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This is the garage…

Of course these criss-crossed supports are temporary, but man did I feel like I was in a James Bond movie trying to sneak through a security laser maze.

Josh was trying to catch some shade as he drank his hot coffee.  It was at least 10 degrees cooler in the garage than in the sun.

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This is the view out the window from Bu’s (cat) room, off the mudroom.  He is not going to know what to do with himself once he sees the neighbor’s horses.

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Barry, Kath, and Grandmother came out for a tour.  Here I am in my element, explaining the layout of the house and which pieces of furniture will go where.

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I got pretty toasty during my lecture, so I went down to check out the basement for some relief from the heat. They got the floor poured Friday and it looks great!

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John has done some more work on the grading by the garage, but there is still a bit to go before we can possibly maneuver a vehicle into one of the bays.

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He was working on the driveway while we were there yesterday until his equipment broke…

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But we have walls(!), so I wasn’t going to let the equipment breakdown get me down.

Someone in my family, who shall remain nameless, asked, “Once framing is done, what is left?”

answer: pretty much everything.

Day 238

So, they were supposed to pour the garage and basement slabs Monday or Tuesday.  The weather was uncooperative (thank you, Cristobal) so that didn’t happen.  I decided to drive out to the property on Tuesday between meetings on the off-chance that it wasn’t raining there and there was concrete being poured.

It was raining heavily.  And there was no concrete being poured.

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This photo was taken shortly before I stepped out of the car and my foot was nearly swallowed whole by the mud.

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This was after 10 minutes of cleaning.

There was only so much I could do with a roll of paper towels and a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer.

Also, did I mention I was between meetings?  As in, after this I had another client meeting?

Thankfully, I had a pair of flip flops in the car.  Hopefully that is the first and last time I will wear flip flops to meet a client.

Moving on.

We had an early morning meeting with our builder today and we were pleasantly surprised how much had happened since the shoe incident on Tuesday.

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They were pouring the garage slab as we arrived.

Maybe I should ask them where they got their boots…

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The also poured the basement steps today.  The basement slab will be poured tomorrow.

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At least I didn’t step in wet concrete…

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The lumber was delivered yesterday (on schedule!) and they got quite a bit done in one day.

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This makes me so happy.

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This forecast makes me and my shoes even happier!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 232

Framing is supposed to start this week – woot!

I can hardly keep it together.  I am SO excited.

IMG_5108They have rough graded up to the house (and covered up most of the ugly black waterproofing).

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This will be a lovely patio one day, shaded from the western sun once the house is complete.  Currently, without the shade, it feels like 137 degrees. Welcome to June in Tennessee.

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The exterior access basement stairs are formed and ready to be poured along with the basement and garage slabs.  Fingers crossed this will happen Monday or Tuesday because lumber is being delivered on Wednesday!

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There is still a bit of work to do on the hill by the garage, but John was focusing on grading up to the house this week.  Josh should be level with the garage where he is standing.

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In addition to grading around the house, John worked more on the driveway.

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We have over 200 videos documenting this process…

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Still not 100%, but getting there.

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Josh, assessing the situation.  He says there is another 3-4 feet in elevation to be built up at the low spot.

I told him that’s what I thought, too.

(I actually have no idea exactly what this all is supposed to look like other than the layout.  This is why Josh is in charge of exterior items.)

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We took a new route from the property to my parents’ house and stumbled upon some of our future shopping options.

I have never been in a “Dirt Cheap” before but I am most curious as to what they offer.

I guess there’s only one way to find out…