Flower beds and more footers

To start out with something a little different we found some flower beds with rock walls that we like in Flagstaff. The large malapai boulders mixed in with smaller rocks to make multi-terrace beds looks really neat. We are thinking this would be a nice look for the front yard to transition from the sidewalk up to the elevation of the front yard. A drip irrigation system would let us plant some pretty flowers and shrubs without too much daily maintenance.



Now back to the hole in the ground...

Some early Tuesday morning photos show the footer progress. Five men were hard at work laying re-bar in the trenches that were dug by the backhoe. Notice the backhoes are not working for once...the serious digging is mostly over. Just some more rock to haul away and the slab area to level out. Although one of the guys was using a jack hammer to get rid of some of the left over rocks in the way of the footers!

The deep footer for the front of the two car garage.

Lots of steel under the staircase at the back of the house.

The beautiful weather turned back to wintry sleet and snow today so progress came to a halt. Hopefully it clears up and they're back to working on the footers on Thursday.

Footers

Excavation continues... Some more hammer hoe time this past week to dig the trenches around the perimeter of the house for the footers. Eddie sure is working hard with the back hoes. He had both running and was jumping from one to the other to hammer with one and then use the bucket on the other to dig out the rock he hammered. Berto and Ricardo kept an eye on the depth of the trenches and got out the shovels and picks to clean out the trenches in preparation for re-bar and concrete pouring.

Hammer hoe hard at work on the rock again!

Ready to mark out the footers around the perimeter of the hole.

A few more loads of rock were hauled off and some more to go...

Hard at work on the footers and remaining excavation.

The outline of the crawlspace section in the back of the jack and jill side of the house is visible with the trench for the footer there.

May snow

We have had some wintry weather here in Flagstaff the past two days. The peaks are all snowy and it was actually snowing/sleeting at the lot today while they were working. But at least everything dries out quickly here, so no slowing down construction. The good news is that the excavation progress looks great! The hole is about a foot below finished floor height almost everywhere now. They have a few more spots to clean out further and then trenches to dig for the footers. Hopefully the footers will go in this week and then time to build up the block walls.

Measuring and marking the footer locations.

The deepest corner back in the back of the garage needs a little more digging.

Lining up the back retaining wall and bump out for the stairs (a little more digging required).

Some of the dirt that is being saved for back fill later. Notice the peaks are covered in clouds and it's snowing... you never know what you'll get in Flagstaff!

Rock, rock and more rock

Excavation went slowly this past week because of all of the rock they hit. Initially things looked good with a nice layer of topsoil, minimal clay and some rocky spots that were easy to break up. But then they hit some hard malapai spots.

The excavator brought out two backhoes and some smaller buckets to break up the rock more easily. They did end up having to use the hammer hoe on the stubborn spots.

The little boy across the street asked what the big hole was for... He was pretty upset that his sledding park will be gone this winter!

Andy pondering the rock...

The back corner of the garage looks like it's almost deep enough.

We finished cutting up the last 8 logs today. We have 6 large piles of wood and several big logs left to turn into outdoor furniture for the back yard.

There are several big piles of rock to haul away Monday!

Firewood for 100 years?

Well it was a weekend of hard work cutting up those logs. We now have 4 neatly stacked log piles in the back corner of the lot. We should be all set for fires in our new fireplace for years to come!

Andy enjoyed using his new chainsaw...he was impressed with how well it worked for some pretty big logs.

Our wood piles and a big stump for splitting the wood once it dries.

The excavator worked for the afternoon to continue digging the big hole. We relaxed for a little while and watched the entertainment.

We cut up at least half of the pile of logs on Saturday...but a big pile still remains waiting for us!