the foundation

early april
it took months to get the plans right and the permits (due to some royal screw-ups by people who should be responsible in their jobs - but that's another story). the day after we got the building permit, the concrete guys dug the footers for the foundation. it was kinda tricky since we'd had all those mega-size pine tree stumps and roots and they had to maneuver around a dogwood that we wanted to keep.

all last fall, winter and this early spring, north carolina was in a drought. perfect building time. but the day after the footers were dug, it rained. and rained. and rained some more. then we had a moat, not a footer. i pumped that moat out dozens of times - it took 2 months to get it dry enough by pumping, better weather and redigging it twice more. by the time they finally got down to dry enough subsoil, the footer was at least 3' deep in some places. that had to be backfilled with 20 ton of gravel and 2 dump truck loads of sand.

finally it was ready to pour. this is early june.

the slab - june 13