Bricks

Here are our foundation bricks. The choice became much easier when we factored in budget and availability.

Today the weatherproofing was going on the basement walls. Next the plumbing will go thru the basement walls, so they can begin to backfill. Scott said they should be framing in a couple weeks. The other good news is that framing prices are very favorable right now - in part because we made it through last fall with no hurricanes. All this sudden progress is making me a little dizzy!

Catching up

My intention was to use this blog both to share photos with friends and family who are kind enough to ask and to document the entire building process. The photos are here, but I need to catch up on the text.

So - - On Thursday, Feb 8th, I drove up to Anderson, SC to visit the brick showroom. Scott (our builder) said that selecting brick for the exposed foundation would be an important decision, since the choices of colors, trims, roofing, etc would flow logically from the brick choice. (no pressure, huh?) Still, I thought I was decisive and that this wouldn’t be too big a deal. Wrong, wrong, wrong………. Not only are there about 40 different kinds of brick, but they come in different sizes. Then there are about 8 different colors of mortar. To confuse it further, changing the mortar color makes the brick look totally different. And the mortar finish can be rubbed, scratched, grapevine, or double reverse grapevine. After the showroom display had me in a near stupor, the very agreeable brick salesman, Chip, took me to look at houses built with the bricks I thought I preferred. The three hours I spent with Chip left me in a daze. (although we did see some awesome homes) We haven’t had to make a final decision yet, thank goodness. I am still waiting to see if they can provide photos showing construction with a new brick that just came out a couple weeks ago that appears to match my intended color scheme. I had planned to knock out a couple other errands while in SC, but was time to head home.

Instead, on Monday after taking the “concrete” photos, we went to the office of the Blue Ridge Electric Co-op to apply for new service. (only after dealing with a sick dog and a flat tire, but that’s another story) This is one of the details that normally the builder would do, but we are taking care of as a cost saving measure. The forms involved giving specifics on our location and names of two of our neighbors there. I hadn’t anticipated the neighbors question, but was able to pull a couple names out of my hat. Scott already has a temporary pole up, so the power should be live soon.

And some trivia: This weekend was the season opening series for Clemson baseball…. Which only made me think that next year John and I will be in attendance. One of the perks of our new location. :-)

We have CONCRETE

View of front of house

Walls from daylight end of basement- they look huge!

Removing forms from front wall

Walls from garage end of home

Digging footers for retaining wall

Super Bowl Sunday

So today is Sunday, February 4th and this afternoon we mowed the lawn (one of the joys of living in the South!) Not because the lawn is growing - no, it is ugly and brown, but as a way of vacuuming up the little fragments that the lawn "sheds". A bermuda lawn is worse than a gray horse shedding out its winter coat (which I have also experienced) With the dry air and the static electricity, one trip across the lawn and my jeans are coated with dead grass from the knees down. The dogs carry in massive quantities of the stuff and it's impossible to get rid of. OUR NEW HOUSE WILL HAVE NO BERMUDA GRASS!!!

Anyway, the news from today is that the basement is dug and the builder is waiting for an inspection before concrete can be poured. The inspector was to have been there this past Thursday, but snow arrived instead. Now we're looking at Tuesday. The good news about this is that they did not hit any rock during the digging - or at least no rock that requires blasting. This was one of our larger concerns, since we knew that one of the neighbors hit a vein of granite while digging their basement.

John and I will next visit "the build" on Monday, Feb 12th and hopefully, photos of the basement will be posted.