January 27

After 5 days of traveling, we returning home this afternoon, but rather than head to the house, we had to go by the construction site to see what was new since I left last Wednesday.

the view from the road.  we have forms, probably about 2/3's finished.

 





 these forms are at the Great Room end of the house.  the smaller boards to the right are about where the floor of the house will be, so these forms are only about half way up

this is the master bedroom. again the forms are only up about half way.  when the forms are finished, they will fill most of the space inside with crushed rock, and then pour a 6" thick slab of concrete over the crushed rock

 this is the view from below the hill looking back at the Great Room and terrace.

 

 

 

 

in order to get the proper elevation of the slab, we had to remove some very solid rock:

 

 

 

 

 

January 15 update 2

There are two red flags in this photo, one up close and one in the distance.  Line them up and that is the west wall of the house.  The loader, operated by Paul, is in the area of the kitchen.  The closer flag is on the corner of the house closest to the street (the garage).  There will be two or maybe three low rock walls terracing up the hill to the right.  At the top of this rise is the property line.


You can see the Escape parked on River Cliff Place.  The excavated area is the garage area of the house, and the white stuff peaking through the dirt where the tractor has been digging is a solid limestone shelf.



Looking back toward the street, we never expected to get that much dirt off of the limestone, which shows pretty clearly here under Paul's blade.


This is the site plan.  You can see the driveway entrance off River Cliff right above the word River.  There is a drainage swale that runs along the road, so the driveway approach will have a pipe under it so it will drain down the hill to the left.  Over the ditch, the driveway curves to the right for a straight in approach to the garage.  Guest parking is between the curve and the garage-there's no parking allowed on the street.  The front entry is right in the center.  There is a covered walkway with 6 stone columns.  The area to the right of the walkway is the courtyard, which will have a tall fence, 6'-8', to keep the deer from eating all the plants.

January 15 update

 

 

On Saturday, the burn ban was lifted for the first time since we pulled the undesirable mountain cedars down, early in December.  We had two piles to burn, and this is the pile that was in the approximate area of the house.  There was another pile on the lower part of the site, and it's now enriching the site as a pile of charcoal.  We also took the first positive steps toward construction.  Mr. Paul Patterson and his helper Craig were hired to begin the excavation of the area where the foundation will be poured.  We now have a stockpile of topsoil, which has been stripped away from the area where the slab will be poured, to reveal a layer of solid limestone.  We don't know how thick it is, but it is very solid under that entire area of the house which has the garage.  The rest of the house also sits on limestone, but it is quite a bit farther down from the floor level, and the foundation contractor will bring in fill material and install it in layers in a technique called bagging, because they layer the fill between sheets of heavy plastic to keep it in place around the concrete beams they will form under the slab.  I will try to upload the floor plan and the site plan in addition to the video.

Progress photos from 6January2013

Proposition Rock

 

 View from the game table

  View back toward the terrace

View toward the rest of the house    View from the street looking past the house

 View from the street toward the Courtyard

 View from the Great Room

  View from the Terrace

 View from the dining loft

 View from the Master BR

 View from Sandy's office

 

  Bark detail from Lazy Red Oak

Sunday, 6January2013

The holidays are over and it's time to get down to business!  Yesterday the surveyor came to the site and staked out the corners of the house.  I came out today (it was sunny and cool, but nice for January) and took some photographs from the location of the rooms in the house.  Not surprisingly of course, the best views are toward the River.  As soon as I find out how to add photographs to this, I'll do that.