Andrea and Andy: From sledding hill to luge track

The neighborhood kids were disappointed that we built a house on their sledding hill, so we decided to put in a luge track on the sides of the house!

Well not quite… We are having a landscape company put in some drainage swales (essentially rocky river beds) on each side of the house to help with drainage from the backyard down to the street. We were worried about the winter precipitation and the amount of damage the runoff could do if we didn’t control it.

The south side of the house yesterday afternoon.

The south side of the house this afternoon.

The north side of the house yesterday afternoon.

The north side of the house at lunch today.

The north side of the house this afternoon. They work quickly! They mixed some malapai boulders and larger rocks in with the granite...looks good! The black weed fabric will keep the river from getting muddy and weeds from growing up through the rocks.

The landscape company is also putting in a few rock walls in the front yard to make our dirt bank a little more exciting. We will wait until the spring to put in trees, bushes, flowers, gravel, etc. They work quickly and are good at using picks to move all of the pesky rocks that we have in the yard.

Plenty of activity in the front yard!

The big pile on the sidewalk is the granite rip rap for the river swales that was delivered this morning.

The little trough is for the irrigation system. More work with the pick!

We went from practically nothing happening on the house Tuesday to at least 10 guys working on various projects on Wednesday. That makes it feel like the construction is progressing much faster! The concrete company seemed to be motivated by the approaching winter weather and decided to start the driveway this week after all. They scraped the driveway to get down to the right level and agree on the layout with us. They brought in a load of ABC as fill for under the concrete and compacted it all.

They poured the sidewalk and approach this morning. This has to be a separate pour because the city require special concrete for their sidewalk!

Was warm and sunny during the pour, so hopefully all goes well! It's a different company doing the driveway; the guys who did the garage slab didn't really want to come back and do the driveway for us.

They covered the sidewalk and driveway for the evening to keep it warm and let the concrete cure properly. The PVC for gutter downspouts under the driveway will go in tomorrow, then the insulation and PEX tubing can go in over the weekend (if it doesn't snow too much!). We will cover the driveway with blankets to keep the ground from freezing, and with plastic to keep it dry from the snow and rain. Hopefully it clears up next week and we can pour the driveway!

The painters finally started caulking the outside of the house. But it's slow work because they have to wait for the sun to hit the spots they want to do since it's so cold out now!

They guys were back today finishing up some of the stone work. They added the little cap row of stones on the top of the columns.

The painters sprayed primer on the drywall so that we could find all of the spots that still needed sanding or drywall touch up. It's amazing how much more you can see when it's primed and you have a bright light! They whole house looks pretty white now...maybe that's a good color to pick for the walls and ceiling:)