Who said Saturday was for resting?

Saturday, 6:53 AM - The crew was here, bundled up and ready to work. It's cold and damp today but they are cranking it out and making a bunch of noise. The neighbors gotta love us!

Full Speed Ahead

We are back in business. They are forming like mad to make up for lost time and have the foundation wall pour scheduled for Monday. We'll provide some pictures then...

Ug. Mama Said There Would Be Days Like This...

The first snag. It had to happen sometime. Its too bad that we ran into it before we even got the foundations complete!

The drilled pier layout was a few inches off. It seems the layout guy miscalculated a wall thickness, which resulted in the misplacement of a line of drilled piers. The good news is that they are only 4 inches off, the bad news is that we've been staring at an empty hole for two days now as the engineer develops a proper fix. Its mid 70's all this week - great weather for making progress. Unfortunately progress will also have to wait for the engineer. Next week is calling for rain so its got to happen quickly!

April showers bring.... MUD!

We think the snow might be done, but now it's raining. We got about 12 inches of snow over the last day and a half. It will make for an interesting Monday for the workers.

It's quiet and snowing...

Since it rained all afternoon and early evening yesterdayand then started so snow, there is nothing going on at our house today. Hopefully the workers are resting up for a busy week next week!

Today's Excitement (so far)

I am quickly learning that there is always something with a construction project. Yesterday we had a gas leak underground which prompted a quick call to the Excel Big Wigs. It was a relatively easy fix and it solved the question of the mysterious gas smell that we've had for a while. When we went downstairs to re-light the pilot light on the water heater we found water in the pan. I thought that was OK, maybe just the overflow??? Good thing I'm not in charge, because apparently it isn't. Our "Cadillac" of water heaters has a flat tire! It's only three years old, so it's under warranty and Total Plumbing is out here for the day replacing it.
We are also drilling for the piers (foundation) today, so once again we have a big drill rig machine in our backyard and lots of noise. When they connected their hose to our house for some special concrete saw, they chose to use the hose bib that is broken (oops we forgot to mention that to our superintendent, Paul) and water quickly started pouring into the basement pantry room through the wall. It was a race to round up enough towels and I broke my cardinal rule of only using 'garage' towels for spills. We didn't have enough so I started using the guest towels - sorry guests!
More pictures to come...

We are Ready to Rumble!!!

We had our "Official" groundbreaking on Sunday, April 12th where Brendan and I shoveled the ceremonial dirt at the job site. How quickly things changed. On Monday, the excavation began, our east trees came down, the driveway and garage slab disappeared and a dirt hole appeared on the side of our house.

The dirt pile keeps growing and Owen claims he is King of the Hill!

We had our 4 west side Cottonwoods removed last week before there wasn't any room to get them down. Brendan spent the entire day working with our tree guys as they chainsawed, mulched, and craned the large trunks into the truck! Goodbye Cottonwoods and Tirehorse Swing!