Dec 13 – Almost 2 months from beginning construction. Progress has slowed as the weather got warmer and sunnier. Still waiting for roof trusses. View of guest bedroom from living room. Mizuho’s den is on the far side.

View of basement, main and upper floor – main floor awaits some engineered wood for the tall wall. It arrived last week – now all we need are the framers back to put it up.

View of lower side of house and entry. Pat is inspecting.

Before the warm weather and sun.

View of main entry

View of garage and shop backfilled. Base of fractured rock taken from excavation topped with about 8″ of sand. Still needs to be compacted. Outside of garage and shop also backfilled part way. Bobcat worked well for this work. Most of the driveway was in good shape but parts got really muddy due to snow, freezing rain and frozen ground.

Nov 13 – Laying out garage and shop with brother-in-law Steve. Decided to place at about 15 degree angle to facilitate access from driveway.  Footings made on Nov 17th – needed stepped footings as grade was uneven.

Dropping a rock into the backfill area (before it fell of its own accord).

Nov 21 – Pouring footings for garage and shop (and upper slab and pads for porch and entry).  Not a lot of room for the cement trucks (3).  Temp above zero but put insulated tarps on the slab for 3 days and left the forms on the garage/shop for a few days.  We were delayed 2 days because cement guys bumped us for a large pour at Big White.  You just don’t get any respect if you are only building one house.

Nov 24 – Forms stripped.

Nov 27 – Warmer, +6 degrees and sunny in the afternoon.  Foundation walls ready for cement.  You only need 2′ of depth for frost here as per code, but with the weather we have been having….

Nov 27 – We poured the slab for the main floor at the same time.  Six weeks and one day into the construction (not counting the site prep work done before we got back to Canada).

Nov 7 – Lower level exterior walls framed

Nov 11 – Lower level exterior walls sheathed.

Nov 28 – 2nd floor and walls above basement framed.

Nov 29 – Main floor framing continues (slab poured Nov 21 but then had 10″ of heavy wet snow and then cold weather for a few days).

Dec 1 – Still cold. Framers almost finished main floor but we had to wait for some engineered wood for the tall wall.  Finally arrived on December 9.  Top floor floor and walls completed.

After backfilling and compacting with crushed rock, we laid radon pipe (to capture any radon gas that might rise out of the ground – a building code requirement), then laid 4″ of radon rock, then a layer of sand.  The plumber then ran his water and waste pipes.  This photo the installing of R12 EPS insulation under the floor slab.  This then gets covered with 6mm poly that is taped and acoustically sealed to the cement walls.  Rebar in a 2′ grid is then laid before the cement is poured.  We had previously run the power cable, communications conduit and water line into the basement mechanical room.

Hime, the Shiba building inspector, approved the slab prep.

Nov 3 – Upper level showing the insulation and the suspended slab.  We put on tarps and laid foam insulation as we were expected frost (and got it).  Floor poured Nov 4

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.