One of the reasons that the blog began today is that this was the day that work began. Early in the morning Logan called to tell us the foundation crew was going to chalk the house. The crew measured the house and made chalk lines for where the concrete forms go for the foundation.
The measurements matched those Rob had done so everything fits around the two trees. That's important to us, since we designed the house so it would fit between the trees.
We did, however, run into our first problem. The pad is about two and a half feet short on the creek side. This means that the concrete footings for the pillars holding up the second story deck will be on the slope of the pad. After discussing different ideas with our builder, Logan (at left with Rob), we decided to build up the concrete footing so that it will reach the pad level. Rob contacted the engineer and took the slope info to him later on Monday, getting the specs for the footing concrete and rebar. This way the foundation pouring will be on schedule and we'll figure out later what to do to extend the pad so the patio goes to the footings for the pillars. Options include putting in a retaining wall and bringing in more dirt to using decking.
