The First Course of Logs is Set!

On Tuesday, the bottom course of logs was set! First, holes are drilled in treated lumber at 36" intervals so that the lumber can be placed over the foundation bolts that were set in the concrete. Then, the logs are drilled and placed on the treated lumber. At this point, that logs are not yet fastened together--this is a "dry fit". It is very important that the first two courses are perfectly level and bolted down before any additional logs are set in place. An inspection by the county will probably take place every time a course of logs is fastened. This picture shows a view of the first two courses of logs set onto the foundation.

Below is a close-up of the northeast corner of the living room.

This is a close-up of the southeast corner of the garage.

Here is a close-up of the northwest corner of the great room.

It's not just a "Log Blog"--it's Halloween!

On Saturday (Oct. 25th) Debi's school held its annual fall carnival and Lisa (Debi's youngest sister) and Kyleigh (Lisa's daughter/Debi's niece) and Debi's mom attended. Debi's mom made all of the Dorothy costumes and the Wicked Witch costume. Kyleigh and Lisa had special wigs on (in case you were wondering about their new hairdos.)

The Logs are Here!

The truck with the logs arrived 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday (October 15) and the next morning Gary used a rented forklift to remove them and place them on the building site.

The logs have just been taken from the truck with the rented forklift. Gary had fun (once again) "playing" with "big boy toys" (in other words, "heavy equipment".)

All the log pallets are in place and log walls are ready to be built--hopefully, next week! And, wouldn't you know, Gary has to report for Jury Duty on Monday! That couldn't have come at a worse time.

"How Firm a Foundation" (We have concrete!)

Taking a cue from a church hymn, we can say "How Firm a Foundation", or in layman's terms, "We have concrete!" On a chilly (39 degrees) Friday morning, October 10th, the cement trucks begin arriving at 7:00 and continued until around noon. We hired seven concrete finishers to do the labor. Debi's parents came up and videotaped the process so that she could watch the video when she got home from school. There were nine deliveries of concrete for a total of 90 yards poured! The last of the workers left about 3:30 in the afternoon. It feels like such a big step to actually have a foundation.
This is what the finished product looked like the next morning. All of the forms have been removed and it is still "green", but you can walk on it. The next step is to have the logs delivered and start building walls! YEAH--it's finally happening!

What a Difference a Day Makes!

The weather turned cold on Friday--you can see all the clouds in the sky. This picture shows Gary installing foam insulation in the garage area. There has been a lot of progress this week with the PEX tubing (the red stuff you see in the photo) going down on top of the foam insulation. Rebar is going on top of the PEX tubing and Gary has to individually tie little "dobies" (not sure of the spelling, but they are little individual chunks of concrete with wire ties in them) to the rebar. The process is time consuming, but we are hoping for the inspection to be early next week so that we can make arrangements for the cement pad to be poured at the end of next week. We are looking forward to seeing a cement foundation soon!