Day 23 - Rain rain go away...

Not too much progess this week due to all the rain...


Standing in the rain in our $12,000.00 excavation... This hole cost us 6x our allocated budget - so we've started into our contingency.


Charles and Freda discussing the excavation.


For when you just gotta go...

Construction is tiring...

A tired Tawny...

Day 21 - another day, another rain delay

It's rained almost all week. The crew got started laying out the footings on Tuesday, but it's rained since then, so it's hard to make progress when you can't work. That was on top of all the rain last weekend. :^(

On the plus side, we've found a generator at a decent price - Kodiak is a Canadian company that uses Honda engines.

Day 19 - setting out the footings

We've had a lot of rain, as you can see.

The long stick that Chris is holding is used in combination with the field level (the yellow tripod device) to make sure the height of the footings are all level.

Some of the crew: Dave & Chris

Two of the house construction crew: Dave Lajenesse is the site foreman, Chris Scully is one of the crew.

Day 14 - excavation complete

The excavation for our basement is now complete. I will post a few photos later.

Due to the extensive requirement for the hoe ram, we are certainly over budget for that item (don't know by how much yet).

Satellite view

Satellite view of the Jiulia Lakes housing development, courtesy of maps.google.com. This image is about 2 years old - the three lakes are all connected now.

It's not related to our house, but this is a cool demo... science zoom

Day 11 - Excavation continues...

Trench to drain weeping tile from around footings out to ditch by the road.

We have found some people who will take any excess rock and miscellaneous dirt/rock off our hands, and even cover the loading/trucking costs. That's great, because we've already blown the excavation budget!


Trench dug to well. Water line from well needs to be buried below frost line for winter protection.


Shovel, resting after a hard day's work (at end of day Monday, April 18th), sitting on top of a pile of rock broken up by hoe ram, and piled up.

Day 8 - excavation continues

Rock still to be removed, in corner, at end of day Friday April 15th.


Excavation - at the end of the day on Friday, April 15th. Lots of rock for everybody!!!



Driveway base - made of crushed bedrock removed from the excavation.

Day 7 - Time for the hoe ram!

The hoe ram, hard at work, destroying a knoll of the bedrock. The rock is soft, so it is not too difficult, which is great because it is $238/hour!!


Steve Berry, one of the developers of the Jiulia Lake Estates. Steve is currently landscaping the ponds at the back of the properties.

Front and rear elevations of the house

Front/rear elevation views of house

Arts & Crafts inspired

Well, I will post a drawing of the front/rear elevations of our house shortly. It is Arts & Crafts inspired. "Inspired", since it is not a strict following of the A&C design rules, but rather is a more modern interpretation.

Day 1 - Permit

Yesterday we wrote the cheque for the permit and development fees, so we should have our building permit today -- which makes today, April 8th, DAY ONE of our build.

Of course, it's raining which is no good for excavation, so that will start on Monday.

I haven't posted a view of the front/rear of the house, and our floor plan, but I will do that soon.