lots and lots of lumber

and here are the pictures of the lumber.....

Four very full truck loads from the lumber company ....

Lumber arrives and sunset view

Yesterday our lumber was delivered... and delivered...and delivered... 

Four trucks and a forklift later, we have a yard full of lumber.

I went out to take pictures but it was getting dark and instead I got these amazing sunset views...so today I am sharing those and later will show you just how much lumber it takes to build this house.

foundation stand still....

We were warned repeatedly about how flaky concrete guys are in our area (I use guys because I haven't yet met any concrete gals). 

Sure enough, our first hire quit on us 24 hours before the initial pour so we hired another guy.  We managed to get the foundation and safe room poured (see below) and now seems to have disappeared. 

We have been calling repeatedly for over a week, contacted friends and his lead guy and no response whatsoever.  So, we are back in the market for the porch.  It has to be done next week to have it ready for the framer who is finishing up the new bank building in town.  If we miss our calendar deadline we will not be "in the dry" by Thanksgiving which is our current goal.

Having whined about concrete guys - here is where we are as of today.  

View of foundation from front of house.

footings for porch - view of front

  

safe room entrance (half of laundry room on plans - our pantry)

view of footings poured for screened in porch off master bedroom

The foundation comes together....

The foundation is coming together nicely....

After months and months of deliberation we decided to use a monolithic slab foundation instead of pier and beam (like the model) because of the stability and location in our area.  We are going to use post-tension cables in the slab though to add more stability and try to prevent movement of the walls and ceilings as much as possible.  All those years living in Texas taught us how much we hate wall and ceiling crack repair!

First the guys dug the footings all around and laid in the concrete base.

Now you know this is not professional photography as evidenced by my fingers :)

Then the boards for the actual floor of the foundation

The rebar you see sticking up here is where we are adding an above ground safe room into the pantry area.  Living on a hill in Oklahoma it just seemed wise. :)

 Better pic of the safe room area.


The guys then laid in the post-tension cables to go down into the foundation....

Then, when we were expecting them at 6am - the sound of trucks rolling in woke us at 4:30am (I do not complain about workers who show up early!)


The guys come in to pour the actual foundation.

The pump truck setting up

It was pretty cool watching how the truck would get the concrete to exactly where it was needed for the foundation

Our concrete guys working hard to spread and smooth the concrete floor.

Then - after the concrete set a couple of days, Stress-con came out to stretch the post tension cables that are inside the foundation.  This should act sort of like bungee-cords to keep the foundation tight and together so it won't crack.  Any shifting should occur as one large plate so the whole house moves preventing cracking in the walls, ceiling, floors.

I don't know why this pic keeps rotating - but you get the idea....

This is it. The home we fell in love with when Jerry and I decided to build our next house. After months and months of searching for a plan that had all of the key features we wanted we found this plan on Southern Living.  Tideland Haven features a gorgeous wraparound porch, fireplaces inside and out and a huge great room with kitchen set inside. As challenging as this first decision was, turns out this was only the beginning. 

Where to build became our first major decision  Luckily, that decision was narrowed down quite a bit by my more than generous parents who offered us space on their property. 

With Dad's help we picked a beautiful location on a hill with the most incredible views.

View from master bathroom

view from screened in porch toward back of house

view from porch on dining room side of house

Of course we are making some changes to the house (it seems everyone I have found who also built this house has done so).

A few of the changes that we know we are making now are
1.  change laundry room to half safe room (above ground tornado shelter) and half pantry / storage
2.  laundry will be in master bath instead of shelves that face the tub
3.  changes to master closet and shower / toilet area to make larger closet, shower and hide the toilet from the shower

Breaking ground and laying out the house was our first major step.....

The work began with lots of big equipment and rock moving.  Here is Riley (our 15 year old son) helping haul rock with his Papa's front end loader.

Jerry and Papa spent a lot of time leveling, measuring, leveling, measuring.....

At last - the stakes went in.  The stakes came out and went back in as we worked to get the house in exactly the right position on the hill for the best views, wind control, and layout.

Finally, the rock haulers started bringing in small, fine rock called screenings.  This is used to lay the base of the foundation.  It took a LOT of screenings.
 

YES - the sky is real and not photo shopped.