This is the forming for the foundation walls on the upper part of the main floor. Frost line here is only 2′ so the foundation walls only have to be 2′ higher than the bottom of the footings.

This is the forming for the 10′ foundation wall of the basement.   The upper level is on the other side of  this wall.  You can see the steel rebar that will end up in the centre of the wall.

October 24 – Upper level foundation after forms have been stripped.

Basement foundation walls after the forms have been stripped

The opening to the wine cellar (although at the rate we are going, I expect we will only be able to afford putting in a couple of cases of beer).

October 15th – First day on the job after we got back to Canada.  And about 9 years after we bought the land.  Going over the plans with the framer for the basement footings.

Framers forming the footings (really good framers)

Cement pouring

Checking the footings with a very helpful neighbour, and the help of Hime.

Footings completed for basement and main floor

A (very well) used Bobcat (which is now owned by Doosan Corporation of Korea but still made in North Dakota) has been invaluable in working around the site, backfilling, moving rocks and clearing snow. It would have been much nicer if it didn’t keep breaking down. Talk to me if you are in the market for a used Bobcat – lessons learned.

A 2006 full bed 4×4 pickup – very useful in getting material, and in getting up the road before it has been plowed. So far, it has proven to be a reliable and useful vehicle.

Our new (to us) snow plow and utility and fun vehicle. Also a 2006.

The next step was to improve the road (some blasting), and excavate the site (more blasting), trench a pipe up from the well, bring power in underground from the nearest pole, and put in the septic field.

This is a photo of the rock at the switchback where we needed to blast to make it larger and more level.

This is the improved entry from the road with the extended culvert. We needed to enlarge it to get the large trucks up. Works great now. 

This is the driller and excavator working on the shop blasting and excavation.

This shows the results of blasting for the garage.

We had to trench from the well up to the house – about 100 metres.

We decided this would be the best (actually the only) possible approach to the desired site for the house. It meant going up a bit higher, but it got us to a “bench” where the land was a bit more level and the view was great.

This is the laying out of the house on the site. It took several days to figure out the exact location and orientation.

There was very little dirt on the site – maybe 10 centimeters of dirt overtop of the rock.

I learned some surveying skills – Pat ran the transit as I ran the rod.

This is the layout for the garage and shop.

This is the layout for the parking/driveway in front of the garage. The basic idea was to preserve as much of the natural setting as possible.

My buddy Pat and I visited the land several times over 3 years to decide where the building site should be, how we could get a road up to the site, and where exactly to locate the house, garage and parking .

This s a photo of the start of the newly-created rough road about 4 years ago.

The road overall is about 1,400 ft long.

We ran into hard rock right where we wanted a switchback. It took a lot of hammering, and finally explosives, to make it easy to drive round the bend.

Road building is a lot of fun, but far more expensive than you would think.

It started with buying some land about 10 years ago in the Okanagan Valley of BC.  These are views of the property from the street, and the views from where the house will be.