HOW ARE THINGS COMING ALONG?

All four corners of the house are done!  They’re thirteen blocks high, and as of this morning, you can actually see where the garage doors will go.  And you can also see where the window goes - and the door on the other side for the daylight basement.  It’s really exciting - not that it wasn’t before - but it’s even more exciting.

Also, we officially put our deposit down on our cabinets, so that’s taken care of.  Since they are custom cabinets, the cabinet makers will wait and do a final measurement, once the drywall is in the kitchen.  They will custom fit them to fit into our space.  So, if we’re off by a ¼” or ½”, they’ll make sure they fit correctly.   I’m liking that idea a whole lot, because in case we’re off by a little bit, it would be a bummer if all of our cabinet doors all tilted to one side, or something like that.  The name of the company we’re using is Ivy Creek Custom Cabinetry in Lancaster, PA.

WERE THERE ANY PROBLEMS WITH GETTING THE CONCRETE BLOCKS DELIVERED TO YOUR  BUILDING SITE?

That was amazing, because of the limited amount of space we have to pull into the driveway - which is cut into the side of a hill.  This huge truck came in, and it was so funny, because the poor driver couldn’t get out on the left side.  He had to crawl across the cab of his truck to get out on the right-hand side, because of the narrow space that we have in the hill that we dug out.  It was kind of funny, but then I felt bad because he got stuck.  We had a whole bunch of rain the night before and it was muddy, but it had started to dry out and we assumed it was dry enough, but he ended up sinking down into it.  Even after he unloaded the block, he was sunk down so low that John had to pull him out with the back hoe.

What I was impressed with - because I had never seen it before - was how they unloaded the block.   They used a crane, but it was all done by remote control - like playing with a remote control car.   It was really interesting to see.  I just stood there for about 30 minutes and watched them unload it, because I was amazed by it.

They delivered the block last Friday afternoon and they started laying it this past Monday.  The first day, they didn’t get everything done, but now they have all thirteen courses laid, and all four corners are done.    As they were doing the mortar mix for the block, they needed extra water, so I put Sarah in charge of filling up these huge drums with water.  She wanted a job, but there are not a lot of safe things she can do at the site.  We’re trying to give her things she can do that are safe, so she was our water girl that day.  She was sopping wet by the end of the whole thing, but the important thing is, that she was involved.

We are supposed to have severe thunderstorms tonight, so I don’t know if I will be able to go and see it.   The mud is insane, because there’s clay in the soil and it sticks to everything.   The block is supposed to be all done by Friday of this week, and then next Wednesday or Thursday, they’re supposed to spray on a tar coating and apply sheets of a waterproofing material before backfilling.

LOOKING AT THE ACTUAL “FOOTPRINT” OF THE HOUSE, HOW DOES IT LOOK  TO YOU, IN TERMS OF SIZE?

Right now, it actually looks smaller, because we still have stacks of block on the inside of the foundation.  I think once all that extra block is out, and it is open, then I’ll have a better idea of what it feels like.  At this moment, I’m not sure how we’re going to fit two cars and a rec room into it.   I can’t perceive that with the stacks of block in there.

DO YOU HAVE POWER YET?

We don’t have power yet.  The Pennsylvania Power & Light people came out and spray painted on the road, to mark where the power poles are going to go.  Those are supposed to be done in the next week.  They’ll have those up, but they won’t allow us to have a temporary power box until the foundation is actually complete.   We have to have three poles added in order to get power to where we are.

HOW ABOUT WATER?  WILL YOU BE DRILLING THE WELL SOON?

There’s no water yet, but we have two quotes back on the septic system.  And we have one quote back from one company to drill the well.   Again, this is something we’ve never done before, so we wanted to get two quotes for each.

DO YOU STILL HAVE MOUNDS OF DIRT THAT WILL HAVE TO BE MOVED AROUND ON THE SITE?

We still have two large mounds that are up on either side of the house that we will use for backfill.  And then we have a little bit on the one side where the septic system will go, since we’ll obviously have to cover that.

FOR THE MOST PART, IS THAT WHAT’S GOING ON?

Yes, that’s enough for one week, I think.