Category: Excavation

Need Door —->

There’s been lots of progress at the house this week, but instead of being excited I have been mostly annoyed with the lack of attention to detail. It’s all getting done, it’s all passing inspection, but it would be twice as fast if it was done right the first time.

I won’t go into all the details, but one of the biggest issues is that they left all the windows and doors out of the foundation rebar. My contractor caught it pretty quickly, but when I stopped by the house at lunch the other day I noticed they were leaving out a window where they had a form and had to point it out and they had to redo the entire section. It’s truly a blessing and a curse that we are there.

They’ve also made way for new plumbing into the addition by cutting out the basement concrete.

Lola isn’t concerned about waiting for the addition to be complete, she has already moved back in. I find her lounging down there often.

The forms are mostly up on the south side so now all we need is a little concrete. Or a lot of concrete. 

This will eventually be the stairwell down to the new outside entrance to the basement. We don’t intend to finish it as a mother-in-law now, but it will be nice to have it as an option in the future. For resale it’s also a valuable part of the addition since many people run businesses out of their houses down where we are since the lots are large.

In order to not have to remove part of the existing patio, they’ve used cinder block on part of the foundation. It is not my favorite solution and it looks terrible, but I’ve been promised it is not only structurally sound, I won’t be able to see any of it when we are done. Notice that this side of the house also has no windows… it should have 2 down there in the foundation.

This is our third dumpster, or maybe even the fourth. The lawn is still littered with things that will need to get hauled out like window wells that were ripped out and some of the demo is still not done on the inside. It’s an amazingly large amount of material that is being taken out even with reusing as much as we can.

My lawn is dead, my entire yard is a pile of dirt. This is a summer I want to forget in terms of enjoying our house, yard, and lot. I feel the worst for our poor dog who is used to roaming around, chasing chickens, and harassing goats through the back fence. This, too, shall pass Luna- I promise!

 

Concrete Cutting, Inspections, Loan Draws, Footings, and Power Woes

It’s been a few weeks since I updated and it was, frankly, because work was happening at a snail’s pace and it was super frustrating to stare at the same house with the same progress day after day.

There seemed to be some confusion or communication issues that resulted in the concrete cutter being delayed which basically kept everything else from progressing. The concrete cutter was needed to remove the existing foundation walls. Fortunately, when it finally happened my in-laws were at the house checking in on things and caught a video of the last wall coming out. The 2x6s that you see are a temporary wall that is literally holding up the house since they cut out the foundation wall. There is also a closet wall that they left in place for now to bear some of the load. I am now afraid to walk into the house for fear the entire thing will come down. It’s a little freaky to look at the house in this condition.

Once the walls were out, they worked on getting the footings in place and the city came out to do an inspection yesterday. Mike got a call from the contractor asking if we were ever in contact with the engineer or if the engineer worked with the architect. After answering some of the questions Mike asked why they needed to know and it turns out we failed inspection because of the size of rebar used.

If this had happened a few weeks ago, I would have been on the phone tracking everything and everyone down, but I’ve almost become desensitized to “today’s issue” already and finally last night just asked Mike to text the contractor to see if he got it resolved or not. He said they did, but we didn’t even ask what the resolution was exactly. I’ve also started to become desensitized to seeing things I didn’t expect to get ruined to be ruined. There are parts of the fence I didn’t expect to see ripped out and also fence posts the crews have backed into that would have been upsetting at first, but now it’s just adding to the list of things that we’ll just figure out as we go.

We had another inspection scheduled for today at 12:30 and we must have passed because when I got home today we had footings in place.

When I got home there was also an inspector at the from the construction loan company. The way our construction loan works is that there are several loan draws and the inspector comes out at each draw to make sure the work that the contractor says has been done is actually done and acceptable. He seemed very nice and asked me some questions about the temporary power and work being done. I’m anxious to see the details of the first draw because it will be the first time I start seeing how the bid compares to actual amounts spent.

We also started having some power issues this week on the trailer. We noticed that our phones were suddenly losing power when charging at night, like the power is almost cycling high and low. It was noticeable because my phone vibrates each time it gets plugged in and it was vibrating every few seconds. We also noticed that the fans run at high speed then for a second seem to run at a lower speed before picking back up. This has happened a few times that we’ve noticed and then last night the power went completely out for a few seconds. I remember Mike getting up and walking around, but I was so exhausted I remember nothing other than that. It came back on and seemed fine for the rest of the night.

A coworker of mine recommended a mobile RV repair guy when he found out we were embarking on this journey and I called him this morning. The soonest he can come out is next week. I had no idea there were mobile RV repair men until just a few months ago, but I’m thankful for them right now because the thought of having to take the trailer to the “shop” for a few days is daunting. I would have to pack it up so that stuff wasn’t flying everywhere when we moved it and then also get us moved out for a few days- instead, he’ll come to us!

In the middle of all of this, the baby turned 1 yesterday! I am not sure how it’s been a year. She is teething like crazy and super grouchy at night when she is sleeping. As a result, so she often ends up in our little trailer queen size bed with us. I don’t mind the extra snuggles during this period of total chaos. Except when she open hand slaps me in the face to see if I am awake.

When Inside Becomes Outside

I know you are all losing sleep over this like I am, so here are your updates!

First, the insurance saga continues. I think we are close to figuring out a solution, but it’s a few more hundred dollars out of pocket to make sure we have the appropriate insurance to protect the entire property and our belongings. The long and short of it is that there never should have been a change requested to our policy, but since there was the insurance company rejected the new coverage which resulted in the cancellation of our homeowners insurance.  It’s extra complicated by the fact that we have out buildings (barn and detached garage), not just the property under construction. Lesson for those at home that ever take on a project like this is that you should talk to your insurance provider, figure our if it makes the most sense for you to carry the policy or your contractor, have them document everything, and never close on a loan when your insurance guy is on vacation.

Also, the labeling didn’t really work on everything in the house, I almost cried when I discovered this cabinet had been junked. Not because I was sad about the cabinet, but mainly because Mike was right when he told me the week before that we should just take the time to remove it so nothing happened to it. I kid. We saved all the upstairs cabinets to potentially be reused downstairs if we put in a mother-in-law apartment and this was the last one to the set. Heartbreaking.

Last week they got the east foundation dug out. See the house plans here if you aren’t familiar. It’s a crazy big hole even though the house is only coming out about 5 feet on that side.  The gas company hadn’t come out to move the gas yet, so they couldn’t finish that side out completely.

A few more photos from that stage that I never got around to posting last week are below.

Darwin took one look at the hole and wagged his finger at the excavator and said, “No, no, no.” He told me that the tractor made a huge mess and it was in trouble. He still tells me that the tractors stole the house, but they are going to put a new one in the hole so it’s okay. Poor little guy, it’s a lot to take in!

We have to pay to have all this dirt trucked out of here, so I am working on finding people on Facebook that want it all. Who knew that dirt brokering was such a lucrative business? Tomorrow we hopefully have a couple coming to get it all for their back yard and that will save us some money.

Fast forward to today and now all the sudden inside is outside and outside is inside because windows and walls are coming out!

A lot of demo has been done, but there is still a lot to do. Both the bathrooms still need to come out, the exterior of the entire house is coming off, and there are exterior walls that need to be removed, including large sections of the existing foundation. We are on our second dumpster already and there is so much more that needs to go.

We don’t have internet again. When they took the utility panel off the back of the house, the cable apparently ran through it. Darwin is devastated that Netflix is not working. We do have a port-a-potty though, so that’s a pretty good trade-off, right? I am hoping Darwin never discovers what it actually is or I will be taking 11pm trips to the port-a-potty, I guarantee it!

We met with the contractors and are finishing up most of the color selections and finishes. We have all the flooring, all the tile, the exterior finishes, and the cabinets picked. We just need to finish up by selecting countertops, backsplash tile, and a paint color. It’s a lot of work and it’s hard to visualize it all coming together so it will be exciting when it does. I feel like every time we meet we think of something that we didn’t specifically include in the bid like window well covers, an outside railing around the new basement stairs, egress ladders, etc. I really like our contractors though. They are very on top of things and pretty calm and collected which makes me feel better.

Trailer living is trailer living. I think the only part I really hate is dishes. Our sink is so small and the kitchen really has no space to dry everything. I need bottles for Trixie so it’s a bit of a never-ending process. Showers are similar, the shower has hot water and works just fine, but it’s just so small and I love a good bath so it’s hard to get used to really fast and cramped showers. Laundry is sometimes a problem, but not too bad. Mike had to run to his parents and do an emergency load of kid bedding on Monday for the first time, but at least we have options. We accidentally unplugged the trailer this weekend when we went to the lake house and lost all the food in the trailer fridge- we just weren’t thinking about it and were so used to closing everything up like we did before when we were hooked up to a converter. It’s been hot in Utah this week, a few days in the triple digits, but we’re decently comfortable all things considered. It just takes a while to cool the trailer off when we get home at night. It has pretty good storage everywhere except the kitchen and in our room, but having so much space in the garage and that being so close means thats not too big of an issue.

I’ll try to update again this weekend as I suspect there will be lots of big noticeable changes around here the rest of the week!

 

The Hole

Excavation officially started today! We are having to hide this fact from our toddler because his obsession with tractors will result in so many fights about how often he can go see the tractor and if he can go ride the tractor.

This window is in the basement and will be eventually replaced with a door leading to the new basement storage room. Here’s to hoping that window doesn’t get broken as it’s the window that will go into the front of the house in Trixie’s room. We’ve done a good job of repurposing all the windows in the remodel.

It’s like a very complicated paint by number in the house with everything labeled as to what stays and what goes, including walls.  

They must have also been interested in seeing just how much work it was to take out the exterior walls because one now has the tiniest of holes in it. I can see daylight inside.

Most of the basement flooring is also out now. Walking on broken tile is slippery and dangerous. I took Darwin in the house for the first time yesterday and he kept asking what happened to the house. I told him tractors came and took it. He seemed a little upset so I told him that we were going to build a new house and he said, “that seems fun.”

Late last week we ran into an additional issue with insurance. I am thankful we have a great agent that is a rockstar because it’s so complicated. The construction loan requires certain coverage, but he was out of the office when we closed and it was not properly taken care of so now we are working it out. Even more unplanned money, but it’s only a few hundred dollars at this point and it’s piece of mind to know we are properly insured for the house, trailer, property we have stored in the detached garage, the detached garage, and the barn. We also need renter’s insurance at our own house since we are not living in the insured dwelling- we are renters and tenants at the same time. As mentioned, it’s complicated!

Today Mike got home and the contractor was here on the phone with the gas company. They haven’t capped their line yet and it sounds like a request was missed, but it’s not clear yet how much of an it is and who dropped the ball. This could cause some delay on digging the east side of the house out for the foundation.

The good and bad thing about being here all the time is that we are here all the time. It’s nice to see progress, it’s frustrating to see no progress, and it’s anxiety inducing to hear some of the conversations. It’s good to not be totally in the dark, but a little bit of me understands the benefits of not being around and instead just being completely in the dark.