Out of Office Announcement

Tim the foundation guru and his family are all on vacation in Wisconsin until Wednesday of next week.  The only thing that will be done between now and then will be the spreading of gravel as a base for the floor of the basement.  The gravel was delivered today.

Front Porch

This is the foundation for the front porch.  The footing for the front of the porch was only supposed to be about four feet deep, but the ground was not solid enough so they put it all the way down.  The excavator suggested we put in a safe room under the porch in case of a tornado, so that's what the near half will be.  It will be approximately 5'x16' with reinforced concrete all around.

...and from another time.

The foundation guys found this about two feet below the surface.  Chris Unland says it's always good luck to find a horseshoe on a construction site.  It is four inches wide and five inches long.  Seems like a small horse wore this one.

Setting The Foundation

Tim, the foundation guy and his crew showed up today.  Tim has three sons, all three are Eagle Scouts and two of them are working with him on our house.  They will set the forms for the foundation and dig out an additional 4 inches within the forms by hand today.  Tomorrow the city will inspect their work and then they will begin to pour the concrete.

Tim and his 2 sons are in the foreground. Chris the builder is in the yellow shirt.

Notice the precision measuring device in his right hand.

Floor Plans and Elevation

Here are the floor plans and front elevation of the house we are building. Click on each for a larger view.  Even with the larger view they are still rather hard to read...sorry :-(

Basement

First Floor

Second Floor

Front Elevation

Good Dirt

The geologist came to the construction site today and with an auger, bored a hole approximately three inches wide and three feet deep in each corner of the excavated basement.  He was able to visually determine that the soil had the proper integrity for building and no extraordinary reinforcing measures were necessary.

Fondational Issues

A lot of things happened Friday.  The security fence required by Des Peres went up, all 400 feet of it.  The informational sign, also required by Des Peres went up.  Actual work on the house? They started digging the hole for the basement.  Tomorrow (Monday) the geologist will come to the site and take samples to determine if the ground is stable enough to put down the foundation.  If it is not, I'm not sure what they are going to do.  What I am sure of is that it is going to cost "mo money"!

The fellow being chased by the front end loader is our builder, Chris Unland.

Everything Costs More Than You Think It Will - Murphy # 6

Today I picked up the approved building permit at Des Peres city hall.  There was the usual $1,000.00 deposit that goes along with doing almost any official business with the city.  If everything goes well, I'll get that back when the house is built.  Then there was the almost $50.00 per liner foot of street frontage assessment that goes into the Des Peres capital fund for road replacement. I have 100 feet of street frontage.  You do the math, it's too painful for me.

Machines and Productivity

I went by the construction site today at about noon.  The big Komatsu Excavator was there dealing with the concrete slab on which the house had been sitting.  I had imagined that they would have to pulverize the slab by pounding it into pieces with the excavator.  Not at all.  The operator just put the teeth of the jaws under the edge of the concrete and lifted it and as he did it would break into large chunks that he would then pick up and load into the over sized dump truck.  I was standing there watching for about 15 minutes and in that time he had pulled up and loaded about one fourth of the entire slab into the truck.

One man with a Buddha belly doing safely the work in one fourth of an hour that one hundred men with sledge hammers could probably not do in a day.  Efficient Capital Investment = Productivity = Progress.  Sorry all you Occupiers out there raging against the machine...reading this on your iPhones

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The Process Begins

On July 12, 2013 the process began by demolishing the house on the property where we will be building the house: 945 Des Peres Road, Des Peres Missouri.  Below are videos of the demolition.  The first one is of the rig operator removing a tree so he can back his tractor-trailer into the driveway to keep from blocking traffic.  The others are of the actual demolition of the house and the removal of other trees on the lot.

About This Blog

This is a simple, informal blog just to keep up with the progress of the house our family is building.  In the early summer of 2013 after living there for almost 40 years Bo and I sold our house on Beaver Dam Road in Des Peres Missouri and began the process of building a house about a quarter of a mile away.  This culminated the almost six month process of planning and designing the new home.  Now it is finally underway.

This is the house we sold on Beaver Dam Raod