Imagination not required.

Our builder, Gary Casazza, is in the process of putting the finishing touches on our foundation today. 

It's amazing, I am usually very wary of contractors, I guess it comes from growing up with a father that insisted that contractors are all rip-offs and aren't conscientious (even though he rarely finished a job and always cheaped out on items you couldn't see). Gary has given me a tremendous amount of confidence that he will get the job done and will do everything in his power to make us happy. I don't think we'll have to worry about being a candidate for an episode of Holmes on Homes.

Karen & I stopped over at the site last night and there were strings up delineating where the perimeter of the house will be.  We are now transitioning from having to imagine what the footprint of the house will be and starting to actually see it in place. This is a big difference from my meager attempts to put stakes into the ground and guess where the corners are.

The depth of the excavation is now where it should be given that we are putting in 9' wall in the basement we are now about two feet deeper than the old basement and the consruction crew is in the process of laying the eight inches of gravel down that will form the footings for the walls.

Friends have asked a lot about what we are using for our basment walls, poured concrete or block. The answer is neither. We decided to put in a pre-cast wall system by Superior Walls. The system, Xi, features an inch and three quarters of 5000 psi concrete, foam insulation and rebar reinforced concrete studs. The beauty of this is that the walls are ready to be finished with drywall without any further preparation.

Friday, August 17, will be a big day for us. The builder along with the crew from Superior Walls will be setting the basement walls in place. At that point we can breathe a sigh of relief, until next Tuesday when the house is set. The compnents of our house have been sitting on a back lot in Beach Creek, Pensylvania for the last four weeks or so. The will make their journey on Monday and will overnight at a local Park-n-Ride lot.

Well that's about it as far as a status report is concerned. It's time to get back to work so we can afford to make the payments.