The big dig

All 16 trees that were within the house perimeter are down and the root balls were hauled away. That meant that the excavator was ready to start digging the big hole today. He hit rock fairly quickly, but it looks like the rock crumbles pretty easily. He just dug a few test pits today, so the next few days will tell how bad the rock really is!

Andy inspecting the biggest hole with plenty of rock

How far down do we have to dig for that garage?

All quiet after work today.

They saved the trunks for us to keep as firewood (we'll be set for many years of fires!). Andy was excited to have a reason to own a chainsaw finally.

The two biggest logs from the monster tree that we might save for lumber...fireplace mantle? Any other cool ideas for Andy to use this wood?

I'm figuring out this blogger stuff...notice the new background. I turned the construction progress post into a separate "page" so you have to click on the page link to the right to find our daily photo of the lot and see the progression. That's the quick and easy check on what's changed...especially for the days that I'm lazy and don't do a post!

Finally the fun begins!

Well we finally jumped through all of the hoops for the bank. This morning we closed on the loan and fun began. The tree service came to take down the big monster ponderosa tree. The rest of the trees and stumps will be taken down by the excavation company hopefully tomorrow. It was impressive to see how precisely the man could drop the trunk, which shook the ground when it hit. We missed him climbing the tree and cutting the limbs and upper sections off. Andy said it's amazing and scary to see how easy it is to take out a beautiful old tree in just a few minutes with a chainsaw after so many years of growing.

Kip and Andy inspecting the tree.

Costa (Kip's yellow lab) helped to get the excavation started by chewing up some sticks and digging some holes.

Check out the interesting growth on the stump, must have been a fire many years ago.

Our little pile of rocks that we collected to start our drainage rock path down the side of the lot.

A year later...

The winter was pretty mild this year and all of the snow has melted, so that means building season is here! We have have an awesome set of custom building plans that have been approved by the city. Just waiting for the bank to give us the final go ahead...

Here are some Solidworks model images that Andy made of the house:

Front of the house

Back of the house

Here are some recent photos of the lot:

Andy and Eric checking out the house layout

The view of the peaks that we hope to capture from the great room windows

The lot looks pretty wide without a house on it!

And it looks pretty steep (better exercise for the dog chasing a ball up the hill!)

The surveyor marked the corners of the lot (Stakes with pink string) and mapped out corners of the house (pink flags). Andy and Kip marked the 16 trees that will have to be cut down. There's one monster that will be sad to see fall...

April 16, 2011 - Surveying and plotting the house