Taking shape - Foundation progress

Even there have not been any updates the building has progressed (slowly as it may seem!). We're back from traveling and vacation to keep a closer eye on everything. The big hole in the ground is starting to look more like a geometrically shaped perimeter of some sort. The walls definitely make the hole seem smaller though. A quick summary... After the footers were poured, the masons started laying block for the foundation. They work quickly! They stopped halfway up the back wall in order to allow the waterproofing company to come in and treat the bottom half of the wall and do the drain tile. And now they're back to laying the block for the remaining height of the walls. Then on to the slab next (after some more excavation of course).

The footers are finished and drying. All of the re-bar has to be left with the orange caps on top because of the safety hazard.

The big footers and bolts for the steel garage beam are boxed off and protected.

Steve's mason crew is impressive! This was only a day or two of work and they had a good portion of the back wall done.

The angled wall and the fireplace on the front of the house (a little extra challenge with the strange shapes!)

Looks like it's time for another load of block...

All cleaned up and ready for the waterproofing company to come and treat the outside of the foundation walls in order to keep the garage and shop dry (yes it's still important even though we're in the desert).

The joints between the blocks were caulked and then the walls were coated with the waterproof asphalt coating. The green drainage board was then stuck onto the asphalt coating. The narrow area between the dirt and the foundation walls made it a little challenging.

Next they put in a drain tile (PVC pipe with holes on one side) in the bottom of the ditch. The pipe had a sleeve (looked like a long piece of pantyhose) over top of it to keep the dirt out of the holes. Then they filled in over top of the drain tile to the top of the green drainage board with rock.

The masons were back on Friday for more block work. The scaffolding is up to do the higher layers.

Only a few courses below finished floor height. Almost ready for the next round of waterproofing!

Concrete pouring videos

Check out the videos from pouring the footers on Friday

Plans

For those of you curious about the floor plan and the strange shape of the hole in the ground, here are some images of the plans. (You should be able to click on the images to make them larger.)

The main living level.

Andy's (and the dog's) garage/shop space downstairs.

The site plan to show the layout on the lot.

Filling in with concrete

I think we have started to progress upward finally! They poured the concrete for the footers today (I guess it was just filling in part of the hole that they dug, but that counts as upward progress, right?) Andy and I took a long lunch break today so that we could watch. They finished putting in all of the re-bar and the forms to control the concrete and had cleared off some of the mud/dirt/rock that was in the driveway area. The truck was there with the third batch of concrete for the day (took 4 truck fulls in total!). It was interesting to watch the transfer from the truck to the pumper to the hoses. The guys were moving quickly to make it all happen. Steve was out there supervising and moving a shovel around to make everything right. We took some videos to show you how it all happens.

The plumber put in some PVC sleeves for the sewer and water lines to be able to cross through the footers.

The re-bar taking shape on Thursday.

The neighbors have a similar rock flower bed that will blend in well with our planned rock gardens on the front. For now we have a pile of rocks an a bunch of dirt!

The muddy mess after the day of rain/sleet/snow. But it's Flagstaff so it all dries out quickly.

Sunny Friday with some snow on the peaks!

The back crawlspace area.

The massive footer for the stairs.

The bolts on each side of the two car garage that will be used to fasten the steel columns to the footers.

Costa was out at the end of the day and ready to jump into the concrete pits. I thought doggy footprints would be cute in the footers, but she would have been a mess to clean up! I guess wet concrete is something difficult for dogs to understand...


Words of wisdom for those of you crazy enough to ever consider building a house:
#1 - Hire an ARCHITECT to do your plans. In the end it's not that much more expensive. One person designing the floor plan, doing the structural analysis/engineering, having a cost effective design in mind, and making it all come together is best. It is worth it. In hindsight, many headaches, hours of time, and dollars could have been saved by going the architect route.

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.