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Pre Permit Stage
The ramp I use to cross the ring beam in order to go to the basement for drinking water or turning off the water each night so the hoses don't freeze.
The dug out ring beam and piles of dirt and broken cement. The white blobs are my trees covered in plastic to protect them from the freezing night time temperatures we get.
The final dumpster filled with chunked concrete.
All three sides of the crawl space had to be chopped out.
The back portion of the hole used to be the outside stairs of the original house. It was made by cutting the steps into the dirt and covering with cement. The piles of cement have been taken away in a 20 yard drop box and the dirt filled in the crawl space.
South side of the crawl space. The hole with the board on top is where the original electricity went to the house. We needed to know where it was below ground to hook up electricity to the building on the back of the lot.
Part of the basement showing the cast iron stove and a big beam that ran the length of that room. One of my workers just had to chop it down.
Some of the builder's equipment.
Well, I guess you can tell who our builder is.
East side of ring beam where the crawl space used to be. Now it is filled in with the excess dirt that was taken out of the ring beam that had to be dug out.
East ring beam with the crawl space filled in to bring it up to ground level.
Those baby palm trees are volunteers that came up due to a leak in the plumbing that is somewhere under the reeds. They look so sad I don't know if the reeds will survive the winter. I plan to move them to the corner of the back yard next to where we plan to move the duck pond. The white hose is our drinking water and the green hose services all other water needs.
That bobcat of Ray's arrived just in time to put the broken concrete into the drop box.
The crawl space that has been filled in and the ring beam portion that didn't have to be dug out.
The boards in the back were the rafters between the basement and the first floor of the original house. In the foreground is what is left of the first floor so we can have access to the basement without risk of accident.
This shows the original exterior egress and the hole being dug for the new egress.
David's home away from home.
The septic tank was full and had to be emptied.
The last of the demolition. No more easy access to the basement.
Our airform has arrived. Now where is that building permit?
40 yards of gravel were delivered in preparation of ???.
20 yards of sand makes for a huge sand box.
The small motorhome and fifth wheel trailer are located between where the old house used to be and the wall on the property line.They are used by Ray and his workers, Chris and Houston.
Ray's big trailer finally arrived one night around 11 pm and parked on the property next door.
One of the first things that happened was the moving of some of my plants so they wouldn't be damaged. As you can see there are no more ghosts in the yard. Temps finally warmed up enough I could unwrap the trees.
Eldon, one of my workers, working on the last of the original floor. We are trying to save as much of the wood as possible for future use.
Chris, one of my other workers, cleaning up the basement.
This is the outside egress from the basement. It was dug by hand with a little bit of help from a jack hammer.
The hens in this pen are very happy to have only one rooster. Now they can get on the ground and not have several roosters chasing them. (Sixteen roosters went into the freezer over the weekend.)
Gracie is swimming in the duck pond while one of his 3 sons and 2 of his daughters look on.George, the mother of all the baby ducks is on the right. Gracie came with his name so I called the female George because you can't have Gracie without George.
A couple of the female ducks getting some shuteye while their brother looks on. All 10 of my not so baby ducks any more came from eggs that George had laid last year and Gracie had fertilized.
One of my hens used to sleep in this tree. She's dark so kind of hard to see.