Dirt pile — gone

The excavators have just about finished moving all the dirt back around the basement and grading the yard:

The front yard:

Our plan is to plant azaleas in mixed colors in two or three rows along the sidewalk — from the driveway to the border on the left. That will eliminate the need to mow the steep slope, plus it will look gorgeous every spring. We’re going to plant a Japanese maple up closer to the house, which will give us stunning fall color. Instead of grass, we’d like to eventually plant a ground cover and eliminate mowing in the front entirely. For now, we’ll put grass seed down and then replace grass with ground cover as we have time.

And here’s the back yard:

The ground is pretty flat behind the house for about 15-20′ and then slopes gently toward the back.

In the background on the right, you can see where the guys have started putting in posts for the fence.

More soon!

Quick update

So what’s going on this week at the house?

Firstly, the water and sewer lines are in and buried.

Secondly, the excavator has started moving all the dirt back around the foundation and regrading parts of the yard.

Here, you can just barely see the red chalk lines that mark the grading angles:

Also, I’m not sure what that pipe is called, but since I think it’s for water and/or sewer, it will be henceforth called the Poop Pipe until I’m told otherwise.

And here’s what’s left of the big dirt pile in the back yard:

Yeah, we’ll be reseeding the back yard at some point.

Finally, we got word today that the SIP’s — the panels that will create the first and second floor exterior walls — will be delivered the week of September 8. This is 2-4 weeks later than our builder was originally told, but it appears that the process of creating the SIP’s has been made even more eco-friendly, so the manufacturer had to make some changes at the factory. So, it’s a good thing for the environment, even if it slows down our project and puts us about two weeks behind schedule. (Yes, I admit to being more than a bit irritated by the delay, but I’ll just have to get over it, won’t I?)

More soon!

The low-waste construction site

One thing you won’t see at our construction site is a dumpster. When I asked our builder about this, he said that he believes having a dumpster encourages waste.

I was over at the lot today and noticed that the builder had loaded all of the cardboard and plastic recycling into his truck, to be taken to the nearby recycling center. He had also created a pile of scrap metal — mostly the bindings used on the plywood and other lumber — to be delivered to a local scrap metal recycler. There is a trash pile, but it’s pretty small and there’s nothing in there that can be reused or recycled in any way.

Even the most minor thing is exciting

Today, the guys continued working on the first floor system:

The opening for the stairs up to the first floor is visible over on the right. Here’s a close up:

The guys will probably finish up tomorrow, including laying down the sub-floor, which they will then cover with plastic until the overall house structure is complete. We’re still waiting to hear when the SIP’s will be delivered, but we think it will be next week.

(SIP’s are the panels we’re using for the exterior walls on the first and second floor and are similar to the Superior Walls used for the basement. I think Pete’s going to write about them sometime soon, including why we chose them.)

More soon!

After a hiatus, lots of progress

After a two week hiatus to let the foundation cure, the builder and his crew started this week off with a bang. They began framing the basement walls and first floor system yesterday:

I just love the support posts:

They’re just simple, squared-off metal posts, but they look so great. Some will be hidden in walls, but others will be visible.

In the next day or two, the job site will be secure. The builder will install the basement windows today or tomorrow and has boarded up the garage door openings.

Not that we’re worried about theft, but the guys have a lot of nice power tools there and we don’t want anything to disappear.

All of the first floor structure and the basement walls will be done by tomorrow afternoon. The excavation company is coming back after that to backfill all the dirt around the foundation and to regrade the yard in places.

We also talked with the builder about fencing the back yard for us — I really admire the style of fencing he used on his last three projects — and they might start working on part of that next week.

On a completely unrelated note, here are two examples of how environmentally-minded the construction crew is:

Two out of the three guys are riding their bikes to work every day. The builder/boss is the third guy and he’s planning to start biking soon, but for now he has to haul the generator back and forth every day.

More photos tomorrow!

Paint chips

Even though it’s still early in the process, I’m already giving paint colors a lot of thought. Right now, there’s a whole lot of this going on in our current house:

Unfortunately, all the colors look washed out, so this isn’t a very good color sampling.

As it turns out, there are four colors that we have in our current house that we like so much that we want to use them in the new house. Except, we’re changing paint brands and using only low VOC paints in the new house, so I’m trying to match colors.

The top photo is in our bathroom. The color is a little darker than as shown. I’m pretty much only looking at the second and third rows (from the bottom) of each sample strip.

The next two photos are in the girls’ bedrooms (in case the butterflies and fairies didn’t clue you in). The older girl has a pink bedroom now but wants lavender and purple in her new room. And the younger girl has a lavender and purple room (with touches of pink and green) now but wants a pink and green bedroom in the new house. So they’re going into each other’s rooms to compare colors.

The last photo is of a table we have. The color is actually much deeper and richer — a true cobalt blue. I worked hard to match that color to my collection of cobalt blue glass bottles and it’s what I want on the front door. (More on that in a moment.)

So for each color I’m trying to match, I’m looking at the paint samples throughout the day and taking notes. I’m going to narrow it down to three choices per color and, once we have actual walls in the new house, take those options over there and tape them up for a few weeks to think about it.

Okay, about that front door. In June I mentioned that the house will be pale gray with a cobalt blue front door. Then, last month, I said we might go with slate gray with a red front door. Well, now I’ve changed my thinking again. Take a look at the photo above of our basement. It’s light gray. I think it would look odd to have that part of the house be light and then the rest of the house be dark. Yes, we could stain the foundation, but that’s an extra, unnecessary step. So I’m back to light gray and cobalt, although Pete hasn’t signed on yet.

This will be the last post for almost two weeks.  The foundation is still curing and our builder is going on vacation next week, so the crew will descend upon the house on the 18th to start framing the basement walls and first floor system.  I’ll put photos up on the 19th.