We’re moving earth! With all permits in hand, and the ground nice and dry, we’re underway! I know you’ve been holding your breath for the last month wondering where we went. Did they fall into the river? Did they give up? Did they just decide to dig a cave and move in? Well, stop holding your breath, the suspense is over.

Extreme Makeover, woods edition:

Before:

 

The big reveal (after). 

 

The second picture is taken from almost the exact same spot. The exact spot would require levitation, or a drone, so this is as good as you’re going to get. If you need proof, there’s 2 trees in the middle that are very clearly in both pictures. I promise.

To get the machines, trucks, and eventually our yuppie city cars down the driveway, Builder Tim has leveled the road off quite a bit. The driveway now turns slightly left instead of dropping straight down the hill. With the angle of the house, this will have you drive right up to the front door, and keeps the driveway nearly level, which is a feat.

 

Here’s the end of the driveway. The driveway curves to the upper left where Tim is working. The original slope of the driveway followed the tracks on the bottom right, so you can see how much elevation change was cut out. From this angle, you’d be looking at the front right corner of the house, and the side porch would be hanging out over the lower road.

 

Now you’re standing on the front porch. What you can’t see in this picture is the mountain peak that is dead ahead through the tress. We need to get the “fancy camera” up there and get a good picture. You can also see the river down below, but again, the human eye is a bit better than my phone’s camera. Once the foundation is in, we’ll have some trees trimmed to open up the view a little bit, and we’re going to clear some of the underbrush to get a cleaner line to the river.

 

For reference, the basement walls will be 9′, so that hole is pretty deep.

This is from the left side of the house. The previous picture was taken from the middle-right of this one. Tim is clearing out the loose dirt and moving it up to the fill the driveway. it’s a much “squarer” hole in person even though it looks kind of rough in these pictures.

Now I’m standing at the far end of The Pit looking back towards the house.I’m about 15′ lower than where I started.

If you’re wondering where all of the trees went, here you go. I know what you’re thinking; “I get a pile that big when I cut my grass every week”. Now take a look at the black silt fence for scale. That’s a giant pile! Once the clearing is done, all of that will be burned on-site. The bigger trees have been removed, although there was only a handful taken out. 

At this point, I need to give props to the builder, Tim Miller, and our super agent Chase McHan (www.nathanfitts.com), who was actually knocking trees down with Tim this weekend. if you know anything of our history with real estate agents, I’m a tough sell, but Chase is awesome. We’ll give an Ode To Chase at some point, but for now, we just owe to Chase because he’s kept this thing moving.

Next up:

-Finishing The Pit

-Septic drain field in Wednesday+

-Foundation Footers in on Friday

-Foundation walls in on Monday