Saturday, November 14, 2009

Framing

At long last, framing has finally begun! It's interesting how this all seems to move in fits and starts; it seems like we go for weeks with very little progress, and then boom, we have a ground floor:
From Framing begins

And then, a couple weeks later, a second floor:
From Framing the main floor

The trenches behind the house have been backfilled, and the eco-block walls have been lowered and buried, which dramatically improves the rec room view:
From Backfilling

The dispersion trench, where all the drainage from the house gets dispersed back into the ground, has been completed as well:
From Framing continues

Of course, things aren't completely trouble-free. The big problem right now is electricity: the cost of bringing in underground power looks like it will be prohibitive, so we're going to need to have an electrical pole at the end of the driveway. That means that at least one of these maples is going to have to come down:
From Backfilling

We're hoping we can get away with just taking down the one overhanging the driveway, so we still have trees on either side; we really like how they frame the driveway and separate us a bit from the road.

Glitches notwithstanding, it's very exciting to finally see the house itself start to come together. There are a lot more pictures in the albums linked above- check them out!