A Firm Foundation
Stress, chaos, excitement, frustration, fear, hope, relief and joy! All feelings we’ve experienced this past couple of weeks! In spite of all these feelings, the foundation is officially COMPLETE!!!! Just posted a slew of new pictures for all of you to see. It is truly a thing of beauty, but did NOT come without a few hitches. Let me fill you in on the latest drama!
First off, if you ever think of building a house, just know that your construction crews don’t really give you much notice. Our foundation forms were delivered last weekend to which we thought, “hmmm, I wonder if they’re going to start the foundation walls on Monday??” Yep, they sure were! Kris scrambled to work which was now unexpectedly on the job site since he’s our general contractor.
The form setup took several days and our biggest challenge was communication. Let’s just say my French classes didn’t pay off and we had to call in an interpreter to talk to the crew and clarify any issues that came up. Then we braced for inspection day. First attempt to pass inspection, we failed!! Ugh!! The crew unfortunately was too small and they couldn’t get the last pieces in place before he arrived, amongst a few other issues that came up…including a door form being upside down. Oops! Good catch inspector! That would’ve been a doozy! Thankfully, he was willing to return that afternoon and re-inspect, so the workers kicked it into high gear and we passed!! Whew! I’ll also note that he was extremely shocked at how fast we were able to get the ground to thaw. When he was out in January, he said he expected the ground to be frozen until April! It would appear our hard work covering the site and running heaters constantly paid off! Yay us!!
Friday afternoon arrived and with it came the concrete! Though we hoped for a smaller truck this time, they once again sent the beast which wreaked more havoc on our driveway, but the foundation was far more important. Six truckloads of concrete later, the crew finished pretty much in the pitch black! What a brutal job! Then all we could do was wait for the forms to come off to see the finished product. It did not disappoint! I will admit that we may have slightly cringed in fear as the forms came down. We’ve had such a rough journey to this point, we half expected holes in the walls, or them even falling down! Nope, they were sturdy, strong and they’re all ours!! I can’t begin to tell you the joy we experienced that day as we actually got to walk around our future home. The future home that is now closer to being a reality than ever before!
