Floors are poured, and no more mosquito breeding pond!

The whole family drove out yesterday to see the progress.  Chris and crew had already done the driveway shoring up.  This included filling and grading appropriately the area by the big spruce that was holding water, moving a culvert, adding a ditch to the north side of the driveway, and topping it all with class 5 gravel.  It looks really great, drainage is MUCH better, and was well worth the money.  Minnesota Power had also been there during the week, and the electric cable has been trenched in.  Both the garage and the basement floors haven been poured.  We are getting very close to the start of framing!

One thing I forgot to mention in the last blog entry among our list of exterior choices was the shakes that will go in most of the peaks.  It's Cedar Impressions staggered rough split shakes in their "cedar blend" color.  Unfortunately I just figured out about 30 seconds ago that you cannot get that color in their "staggered" look that we wanted.  Only in the "straight" look.  Seems like we have more shopping to do.  Regardless, here's a picture of the color we are after:  Shakes

Here are a bunch of pictures from yesterday:

Garage floor poured:

Basement poured:

Area around big tree after driveway was shored up, drainage improved, and mosquito farm was filled and graded:

Electric trenched in:

Tommy, as usual, off on his own independent adventure:

And a couple other random shots...first a view of the existing trail off of the backyard.  Prior owners used it for a 4-wheeler trail and probably access to their hunting stand:

Here is a view, standing on the easement section of the driveway, looking south toward where the driveway turns onto our property:

Sick (twice!), in-floor heat, and excavation negotiations...

As usual, its been way too long since I updated this. Well, my excuse is that I've been sick AGAIN. I don't think I mentioned it in past entries, but about a month go I battled strep (complete with 103 fever) for about 10 days. Then on the back side of that I managed to pick up some sort of sinus infection/severe sore throat/congestion/crud/etc/etc which I have finally fought off. Now that I feel a little back to normal, I need to update our story.

So, first off, what has been done with the house? Well, all the in-floor heat plumbing has been put in for the garage and the lower floor. The sauna tubes have been placed for the deck supports. Grading around the house has been complete (the excavator will come back in the fall for a final grade after all the other building has been done). The geothermal field in the side yard was dug, installed, graded.  About 2/3 of the driveway after the turn from the easement has received a layer of class 5 gravel. The first step of the electrical has been done and there is a meter installed at the site.  Additionally, the last time I was at the site the garage floor had been poured, but I don't have any pictures of that.

The grading really turned out nice.  It's almost like the house is sitting on a little hill, with both the front yard and back yard relatively flat.  The large side yard is gently sloped.  The excavator really did a nice job!

So, here is a bunch of pictures that I DO have:

Garage with in-floor heat:

House with in-floor heat:

Looking down from front porch:

View from rear of garage:

Grading of front yard:

Grading of side yard (geothermal field is located here):

Backyard grading, and sauna tubes:

View from SE corner of backyard, side yard, and deck footings:

View of driveway looking toward site:

View of driveway standing in front of garage:

Electric meter installed!

I met the excavator (Chris) at the land the other day to talk about a few things.  First of all, he was concerned about the turn from the easement into the driveway on our property.  He didn't think the long truss trucks would be able to make that turn.  Additionally, we had concerns about the driveway adjacent to the turn.  There was a lot of water gathering in that area near the big spruce tree.  When we asked him about that, Chris said that he didn't like how that portion of the driveway was shaping up (he didn't do that work initially).   He suggested to solve the problem we should move a culvert, shift the driveway, ditch the north side of the driveway, and grade the area around the large spruce that was gathering water.  It wasn't a no-brainer since it would cost more money to do.   But it was something that would need to be done as that area of the driveway would be taking on a lot of water, especially in the springtime.  So at this point I think that work has been done, but I haven't seen it yet (hopefully tomorrow morning).

One other thing we talked about was extending the backyard.  What I think will happen is that we will cut some trees ourselves to save some money.  Then, when he comes back for the final grade, we will pay him to stump and grade the area that we have cleared.  We really want to end up with a large backyard for the kids to play in...and we will be able to watch them from the deck, screen porch, or even from the great room.  The chainsaw my father-in-law will be handing down to me shortly will come in very handy!!!

We managed to pick out the stone for the exterior accents.  It will be a combination of St. Croix Stone Hackett and Ledgestone -- both "Bucks County."  Here's a link:
St. Criox Stone website

Along with this decision, we landed on a shingle choice:  Timberline Weathered Wood.  Below is a link, but there's more blue and light brown accents in person than this picture shows:
Timberline website

And for completeness, I don't think I ever linked our choices for siding and windows.  We choose Marvin Integrity windows in cashmere exterior.  For the most part they will be double hung, but several windows will be casement where it makes sense (above sinks for the most part).
Marvin Integrity site

The siding we are going with is steel siding by Emco.  The primary color will be sage.  The secondary color
(window wraps, soffits, fascia, gutter) will be sandstone.  Below is a link, but the colors really are not very representative.  The Sandstone color on the site looks gray, but its really a lot closer to the light brown  "cashmere" color of the Marvin windows (which is why we went with it). 
 Ecmo steel siding website

Ok that is way to much typing for one night.  We will be going out to the land tomorrow to see the progress so expect some updated pictures soon!

Back Filling Underway

Went and took a peek at the site last night. Excavators have been there back filling both inside and outside the walls...mostly around the garage so far.

I did notice that I think the foundation for the workshop (the last garage stall) was poured as if it was a 9' wide garage door. It should be 10' wide. So that's going to have to be fixed.

View from side yard:

Garage pretty much back filled and leveled out:

And, as usual, dirt = fun: