{House update} Visual Progress!

With all the delays we've been experiencing, I never would have guessed that our house would be moving faster than I'd post. I'm way overdue for this one! And not only have I not been keeping up, I've also been taking terrible phone pics of all the progress so far. Bad, bad blogger!

So the last news was that we got our building permit right around the beginning of February. Shortly afterward, we went over to the lot to check that the all the flagging around the trees marked for clearing was still up, and saw the first big sign of progress. Which was, literally, a sign.

First sign of progress - the builder's sign!

Then we were notified that the site work crew was actually starting! We went by the next day, and we had a construction fence, a construction driveway, and they had made a little progress with clearing the land. It was also super dark out, so these photos turned out scary bad (fyi - that's supposed to be the driveway in the last pic). The driveway was also really exciting to see - we had been warned by the county inspector that it might be really steep in the front, but they were able to level it out so it's not bad at all!

Site work day 1

We came back again the next day, and they had made a lot more progress with the trees. At this point, I thought they had basically knocked down all of the trees they needed to. The pic below shows all the trees that were down, the much larger machinery they brought in compared to the first day, a (slightly) better shot of the driveway, and the construction flag sign - yes, we are those annoying people causing occasional traffic hold-ups!

Site work day 2

You guessed it - we came back for a third day in a row. We were wrong about all the trees being down the previous day. Now basically every possible tree was knocked down. That was a bit disappointing - we knew all of the trees in the front were coming down, but were hoping they could keep a few of the big ones on the side. Guess we will just have to replant some. Like I mentioned before, we feel terrible about this part of the process, so we did at least donate to reforestation efforts. Although it was kind of a shock to see so many trees ripped out... the pictures below don't really show the scale.

Site work day 3

So all of the clearing took place pretty quickly. The next step was to excavate and pour the foundation, but they needed to wait for a good stretch of weather. We kept getting rain or snow for a couple of weeks. This waiting period was also during the big 'snowquestration' scare, which luckily turned out to be a very minimal amount of snow. I was seriously doubtful that they had made any progress at all, but we decided to swing by last weekend... and we saw a HUGE mound of dirt in the front. They excavated!! Then we looked a little closer - they poured the concrete too!! We have a basement!!!

We have a basement!!

Just in case that massive collage of concrete and dirt left you still wanting more... here's one more from Instagram for good measure...

Eiiiieeeeaa!! {That's supposed to be a squeal of excitement} It's so incredibly exciting to see something actually turning into a house!!

The concrete needs to sit and cure for a bit so it gets nice & strong. We stopped by again today (a week later) doubting that anything had been done. There really wasn't much to see, although there were a few guys out there working on something (on a Saturday!). Hopefully that means there will be more to see soon!