Construction Week 4

We made some pretty good progress this week and we are finally almost ready to pour our slab! Woo hoo!

On Monday, after the pier engineer passed the piers, our excavator came back and leveled the pad since for forms truck messed it all up with all the dirt they dug up.

The pier truck also came for the workshop and dug all the piers for that!

Then on Wednesday the trenchers showed up to trench the beams for the foundation.

The plumbers started on Wednesday and finished up on Thursday. The inspector came today (a private inspector we hired since we don’t have city inspections) and the plumbing passed inspection. yay!

Hopefully next week the foundation company will come back and fix all the forms, dig out the trenches, and put the moisture barrier up. Then we will have a soil moisture test and one more inspection by the foundation engineer before they pour. Exciting!

Construction Week 3

Well, it was a very frustrating week with set backs. We were supposed to get our piers done on Tuesday but the pier truck  got there and broke down after 8 piers =( We were so bummed but it happens. So they weren’t available to get the piers done and have the concrete lined up again until Friday. We finally got all 66 piers dug and poured on Friday! It was crazy watching all these concrete trucks do their thing! It was such a relief to finally get it done! Even though, we probably would already have a slab if we didn’t do these extra piers, I am so glad we will have a nice strong foundation that hopefully will never have to get fixed. We had to fix our foundation in The Colony twice in 7 years so doing this now was a no brainer! Now, we can move on to plumbing!

Construction Week 2

Not much happened this week as far as construction. Apparently, concrete is in high demand right now so there was quite a wait for the piers trucks and concrete trucks. The only thing we got done this week was the Form Survey which is basically just a new survey of our land to show that the forms were on our property and not encroaching on any property lines. We were all good there! We did go this week and pick out our brick and stone. We choose Old Hickory for the stone and Commercial Antique for the brick. I hope it ends up looking great! It is so nerve-wracking picking things!

Construction Week 1

We have made a lot of progress in just the first week! First, we got the excavator out there to level an area for the workshop and the house. Then we had him bring rock in for a temporary driveway and parking area in case it rains. Next we met with the workshop guy to get that all squared away and pick out our colors and options. He should be able to start building it in two weeks which Shannon is VERY excited about! We also got a port-a-potty delivered. Sorry I don’t have a picture of that but you can use your imagination =P.  Lastly, we got in touch with the foundation company and got on their schedule. They already came out today to get started on placing all the forms. So exciting to see it coming together! I think we did a lot for just the first 4 days!

The boys loved watching the bulldozer and dump trucks.

Next week we will have the piers put in for the foundation (we have a ton of those), rough in the plumbing and floor electrical and get a form survey. After that, we will be ready to pour the slab!

Construction Loan Closing

We closed on our construction loan! It was a long process of planning and tons of work but we finally closed! Woo hoo! Time to start building. We are super excited to get started. I will try to keep updating the blog through the process!

New Chicken Coop and Chickens!

We decided to upgrade our chicken coop because we haven’t been letting the girls free range as much as we used to since we lost one of them to who knows what (we are guessing a hawk??). So now they only get to roam when we are there to watch them. I wanted to give them more space and a little more shade because it has been so hot here so I found this adorable coop on craigslist and fixed it up to work for us. We tied the old coop in to the back with a little tunnel so now they have lots of room to explore and nest. They seem to be happier with all their space. We also got 4 new chickens so we could add some different types. We wrapped chicken wire underneath to prevent anything for trying to dig in and get them.

They LOVE to get watermelon treats!

 

The boys posing in front of the new chicken coop. We had to add a little decor =)

Here are our new girls!

New playground and end of school year!

Last week our new community park opened! The boys were so excited to go by and play on the new park and check out their hand print tiles they made. I can’t believe how much bigger Tristan’s hand was since the beginning of the year! What an awesome town we have!

Today was the last day of first grade! =( It’s crazy how fast the school years go by. I can’t believe he will be a big 2nd grader next year! I am so proud of him for working so hard this year and getting the Honor Roll. He is a math whiz but Reading and Writing did not come easy for him so he really had to work hard this year. He has improved so much! Here he is with his honor roll certificate and his awesome teacher Mrs. Nichols!

Nana and Papa came to visit!

A few weekends ago we were lucky enough to have Nana and Papa (Shannon’s parents) come visit us. They brought their camper and pulled it up next to our cabin. We had so much fun hosting them! We went to Tristan’s baseball game and had a campfire. We even cooked our yummy dinner over the coals. It was a fun time!

 

Here we are waiting for Nana and Papa to arrive. Tristan was SO excited he kept asking every 5 minutes what time they were getting here.

Nana and Papa got to watch Tristan play baseball on a very hot day!

We came back home for relaxing!

Tristan made us an awesome campfire. I can’t believe at 7 years old he can stack the bonfire and light it using only the flint and steel on the knife. He is always so proud of himself afterwards.

Logan enjoying a yummy smore!

Eating the foil dinners!

Maggie enjoyed hanging out and visiting with everyone too. 

Logan doing some more relaxing!

I love this picture because all of my guys are busy doing something. They are in their element when they are surrounded by sticks, dirt, and fire!

 

The week after Nana and Papa left Tristan finished up his baseball season. He had so much fun playing baseball!

 

We appraised!

I just got word from the bank that our house plans and land appraised for more than we are spending to build! YAY! One less possible hiccup on the journey to breaking ground. So now our loan enters the final processing stage and then once that is done we should be 5-7 business days from closing our construction loan. We can’t wait!!

 

Cost Review Meeting

We recently had our cost review meeting and we were under budget!! YAY! So last week we got everything submitted to the bank. They say 30-60 days from this stage we will be closing on the construction loan so hopefully by the end of July we will be getting our slab poured! I am so happy that it came in under budget even with all the nice stuff I picked out. I CANNOT wait to see our dream house in person! Pray that this funding process goes smoothly!