Backstory Blueprints Photo Archive January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 Current Blog

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 So begins the official online record keeping of our hillside adventure. Joy picks up permits from the City of Sandy today. That's about as official as it gets. Now what? Thursday, January 27, 2005 Shawn and Dave started the excavation today. The dig-out looks impressive with an 11-foot high wall of dirt carved out for the west side of the downstairs utility room. It looks like an archaelogical site dig with the different stratas exposed. The two small trees on the site were picked up and thrown into the neighbor's yard where our friends, Ed and Laurie, will cut them up for firewood. Saturday, January 29, 2005 If the 11-foot drop doesn't get you, the mud will. We went up to see Shawn and Dave's completed excavation. Carved up dirt never looked so beautiful. At this stage the outline of where the foundation walls will be located becomes apparent and we can start to loosely picture where some basement rooms will be along with the garage and entry. We're also starting to see areas where fill will and will not be necessary. The basement level porch was going to be done as an outdoor concrete pad. Now that we see the amount of fill rock that would be required to achieve that, were finding the prospect of a post and beam, elevated deck more attractive financially. Sunday, January 30, 2005 Pete, our foundation man, marked the location of eight spots below what will be the east foundation walls to prepare for Monday's starting of Earth Anchors work. Debate has been ongoing about the extent to which we needed to secure this home on a steep hillside. John, the soils engineer, strongly recommended the process we're using, and though we know it may be overkill, it's a nice insurance policy against free rides down the slope. If you like this kind of stuff you can see more technical information at the Earth Anchors website. Monday, January 31, 2005 Earth Anchors did their work today, installing five of the originally planned eight anchors. The extra three anchors were going to be used under a section of foundation that would have supported the downstairs concrete porch pad. Because we opted for post and beam construction and simple attachment to the finished house foundation, the extra connections became unnecessary, allowing us to put money toward important things like big-screen televisions. Continue on to February

Backstory Blueprints Photo Archive January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 Current Blog