We have WALLS!

Adam and I finished laying out the walls on Friday and were ready to go with framing on Saturday. We had a few friends from church come out to help us - THANK YOU, Chris and Nels! They do custom renovations for a living and were a HUGE help. We set up our cut areas in the garage and started building the walls for the opposite corner - the back guest room. We were able to stand up a few walls and they look great. It's so exciting to see the house take shape. Here are some pictures . . .

Here they are Saturday morning - 7 am - talking about the game plan. The red lines on the concrete are the layout lines we made.

Here they are building the first wall - the back wall to the guest room.

Here are some of our tables set up and walls built and stacked in the background.

Raising the first wall!

Look at those walls! These walls surround our two back bedrooms and baths.

More walls, same area. It POURED down rain on us Saturday afternoon, so we had to break for a couple hours.

Here is the stash of wood that was delivered. We've been keeping them covered, so they wouldn't get wet.

We worked on the house for about 5 hours yesterday as well. Adam and his dad took today, Tuesday, and Wednesday off work - so, they'll be out there framing for most of the week. Adam's brother should be out there helping as well. It's a lot of work, but it shows progress quickly. We've bought some new fun tools - a reciprocating saw (Sawzall) and nail gun. Be sure to check back this week and I'll post pictures of the progress.

Our Slab

They say that a concrete slab is supposed to look small, until you get the walls up. Well, I think mine is huge . . . so what does that mean about our house? I think it means we're getting in over our heads. But, here we go anyway! We took the visqueen off the slab yesterday, here's some pictures of our concrete baby:



These are from the back corner of the house, the master bedroom & bath.

Adam and I started laying out the walls yesterday, by snapping some chalk lines. We have wood coming today and will start framing the walls tomorrow!! We have a few friends and family members coming out to help, thank you! I will post pictures of our work on Monday. Adam also plans on taking a few days off work next week to frame some more. Our floor trusses are scheduled to arrive July 2nd and our roof trusses on July 7th. We're hoping to get a lot of work done quickly - so exciting!

Wet Curing & Golf

We are currently wet curing our concrete. This involves covering our freshly poured slab with visqueen (thick plastic, similar to garbage bags) and then sprinkling water over the top for one week. This is our current set up:





We are doing this because the first seven days for concrete are crucial for its strength and durability. I found this interesting article that goes into more detail, if you are interested.

We will start laying out the walls and framing at the end of this week! Adam plans on taking a couple days off next week to frame the house. I'll post more pictures when we start.

On an unrelated note, Adam and I took my parents golfing this past weekend at the King and Bear in St. Augustine. This was a birthday present for the two of them and we had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of my mom and me on the course.



This was my first time golfing and I did much better than anticipated. Thanks for the tips, Mom & Dad! Adam and I had a great time!

CONCRETE!!

We placed the concrete today! Adam and I got out to our house a little before 6:30 am. We secured our plumbing lines and then the concrete crew arrived around 6:45 am. The first concrete truck rolled in around 7:15 am - time for me to roll camera and watch the magic. It took 8 concrete trucks - each carrying 10.5 yards - to complete our slab. They worked at least 5 hours - Adam and I left before they were completely finished, so we could get back to work. I captured a lot of it on our video camera. So, if you ever come visit us after we're moved it . . . we'll show the whole thing to you! (You really should visit us, we can always fast forward through the slow parts) Here's some pictures from the pour.

Here's the first concrete truck, pouring footings around the garage. They did this first, so the concrete can set while they work and then they can remove the form boards to pour the rest of the garage (they did the same thing for the porches).

The second concrete truck is on the left - it poured the exterior footings around the master bed, bath, and back porch. The third concrete truck, on the right, poured the hall bath and bedroom.

Here is the third truck - with the crew pushing the concrete in place.

This is the fourth truck placing concrete in the dining room and stairs - Adam's trying to stay our of the concrete, while getting our pipes in the right spot.

The fifth truck placed the master bath and bedroom. Here are the guys smoothing the concrete out.

Here they are smoothing out the concrete in the back bedroom. You can see the guy in the back using the bull float to get the smooth part to the top.

The completed front porch.

Finishing up the back porch.

Removing the form boards around the garage.

I don't remember what this thing is called, but they used it to go over the slab to make it smooth.

The last pour - the garage!

Here's some of the trucks doing clean out - they have to rinse all the remaining concrete from the truck and dump it on your property. So, we had quite a pile after eight trucks - this was only the sixth or something.

So, there you have it - our slab!

We left before they completed the garage, finished the surfaces, and removed all the form boards. But, they were practically done it was already 11:30 am. They are going to come back this afternoon to cut the control joints. After that, we will put visqueen over the top and run a sprinkler for a week. This is called wet curing. It's the best way to cure concrete, but isn't typically done on a house. However, we want to build our house on a firm foundation! I'll take some more pictures of our set up. After the week's over, we start framing!!

Horray for being out of the dirt! :)

UPDATE: Concrete on Thursday or Friday

The concrete company spent most of the day yesterday putting down visqueen, rebar, and wire mesh. Here's some pictures of their work:

The front porch.

The hall bath, back two bedrooms and kid's bath in between.

The Master Bathroom - notice the wood around our recessed shower.

The garage - the concrete has a thickened edge around the exterior walls.

Close up of footings and pad on front porch.

We discovered that we still need a survey of the formboards, in order to pass our slab inspection - so, we now have that scheduled for tomorrow. This will push concrete back to Thursday or Friday. I'll post pictures as soon as we make the pour.

I passed my exam!

By the way, I found out last week that I passed my Fundamentals of Engineering exam! This was the 8-hour exam I took back in April. So, this means I can offically add "EIT" after my name - "Engineer in Training". I need another year and a half of experience, then I can take the test to become a Professional Engineer. I am officially moving up in the world.

Concrete on Wednesday

Plumbing is complete and passed the inspection last week. The concrete company has been out on our property since last Thursday, preparing for concrete. They have cleaned up the footings and pushed dirt against the form boards on the outside of the house. They've been working fast and it looks great . . . but, they broke our plumbing pipe in two places, relocated our electrical conduit, cut a gash in our hose, crushed our water meter housing, tore up our insulation, and when they tried to fix the plumbing pipe themselves - they made the pipe stub up outside the wall. Oops . . . they did their job well, but were just a little rough. Adam and I spent some time this past weekend trouble-shooting and confirming dimensions.

They are completing the preparations for the concrete today - putting down rebar and visqueen, and digging a bit more. Termite treatment also went down today. We have our slab inspection scheduled for tomorrow and will pour concrete Wednesday! We can't wait to have a picnic on our new slab! Here's a couple pictures:

Our subcontractor finishing footings and compacting.

The broken water meter housing.

Supply Plumbing: FINISHED!

Adam and I worked on the supply plumbing for several hours yesterday . . . and finished! Here are some pictures from the past week. We are still on track to have the concrete placed this week!

I'm showing Adam where to dig the supply trench.

The master bathroom and laundry room.

The water heater and kitchen.

The hall bathroom.

Close up of shower and vent in hall bath.

The "kid's" bath with hose bib in background.

Where the water enters our house - corner of garage.

And here we are at a wedding this past weekend. Congratulations Richard & Chrystal Poole!

and the Plumbing continues . . .

Well . . . we're still installing the underground plumbing. I forgot my camera, so I will have to post pictures later. We have continued to be out working on our plumbing every day this week!

The plumbers that helped us out last Friday worked on our house for 7 hours! That's a lot longer than what we thought it would take, but that time would of probably been tripled if they weren't there to help. So, thank you! They finished the sanitary (sewer) line, except for a short run where they ran out of 2" pipe. That night, Adam and I went to Home Depot and bought our supply pipes and fittings. We were there for a couple hours, picking out everything we needed and trying to figure things out.

Last weekend, we finished the sanitary and set up the water test. This is where you put caps on all of the openings coming up out of the slab and fill everything with water. The pipe that you fill with water must be 5 feet above the finished floor. The point of the test is to test for leaks. If you fill everything up and it maintains the water level for 15 minutes, you pass. This test must be seen by the inspector. We attempted to perform this test ourselves . . . failing to realize you must glue the caps on, not just set them in. So, we were running around like a circus, trying to put the cap on that just flew off, without getting soaked. That was fun. Anyway, the caps are glued on now and should be ready.

We also bought the electrical conduit, to run from the meter to the panel under the house. That's in place and doesn't require an inspection. We started to dig trenches for the supply lines and get that going as well. It's much easier to put together than the sanitary, there's just more of it.

We had a partial inspection for the sanitary line on Monday. We got a partial pass - we need to add sleeves where the pipe is going through footings, and we need to set up the water test for him to see. He'll finish his inspection when he comes out to look at the supply side. So, we were able to backfill over part of the sanitary, but not everything.

This past week, we've been putting together the supply pipe and adding sleeves to the sanitary. We have most of the house finished! The sanitary is complete and we just need to supply water to one and a half bathrooms (we finished the master and part of the hall bath). We should be able to complete this on Sunday - we will be out of town tonight and Saturday. We also need to set up a pressure test for the supply - this will also test for leaks. If everything goes to plan (it never does), we will get our plumbing inspected on Monday and will have them prep for concrete starting Tuesday. This means concrete should definitely go in next week! I'll post pictures soon. That's all for now.