New House Update #4

Well big changes are afoot at the new house site. We got our permit more than a month ago now. We then had to wait a couple of weeks for the demolition crew to become available, as they were busy finishing up another project. Suddenly, a week and a half ago, we got a call from our builder informing us that not only had the crew become available that morning, but that they were already on site. I was a little miffed at the lack of advanced notice, since I had wanted to watch the old structure come down.




I raced over and by the time I got there, half of the main house was down, but the garage was intact. I hung around for an hour watching. The excavator operator was meticulous. He slowly went from piece to piece, carefully sorting wood from metal, from concrete, forming huge piles of each material. While I was watching he demolished the garage, so that was fun to see. The funniest part was that I was sure that William would be over the moon, watching a real live excavator. One of his favorite things to do is watch videos of excavators working. Instead, he was bored after 15 minutes and I had to bribe him with snacks and phone videos to get him to stay longer. Needless to say, I was thrilled to watch the old POS come down.

Over the next few days, they carefully took down the rest of the structure, sorted the debris and hauled it away, then took down the trees and stumps and cleared away all of the shrubs and ivy from the top of the soil. I just went by there yesterday and the lot is completely bare, they had erected a temporary power pole, and they had dug the hole for the foundation. I believe in the next week or so, the lot will be inspected by someone from the city, and after that they will begin to pour the foundation. Once the foundation is completed, there will be another inspection and after that true construction will begin.



Our move in time frame is still May or June so we have 5 or 6 more months of stalking our construction site. I am so excited to see the new structure go up! It sounds like once that happens, we will start having regular meetings with the builder on site, to make sure everything is happening like it should. Also we will need to give input on things like where electrical outlets will go, as well as changes that we are going to make to the design that weren't incorporated into the final blueprints. One other thing coming up soon, is our big meeting with the interior designer. She will help us select all of the finishes in the house, including lighting, flooring and cabinets in the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms (just to name a few). Having spent the better part of two years looking at thousands of house pictures and carefully thinking about what look we want in the house, I will be thrilled to actually pick things out and order them. Anyway, for the moment the lot is cleared and every time I go by there is a large crew of men looking very busy. Its so exciting to see something finally happening!

Prior Updates:
Dream Home - The Beginning
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3