Building a house in the middle of the winter can be interesting to say the least. Nerve racking to say the most. The first house was started in April and was weather delayed for a month by monsoon style rain. The next two houses were built in the middle of the winter with no weather delays and very little snow. The fourth, following the trend, is being built in the only year we actually receive a lot of rain, snow and enough mud to make any mud-bogger happy.

The foundation is back-filled and the landscape around the house is rough graded so the water will run away from the house which is difficult to accomplish because of the front to back slope of the lot. There will eventually be a 2 foot rock wall that runs the width of the house about 15 feet from the back of the house around the patio. The rest of the back yard will be mostly flat sloping from the middle out to the sides so water will run out and around the house towards the street. The front will have two small horseshoe like cuttouts with rock walls to soften the front appearance of the home when looking from the street.

These poor guys were throwing the snow up and over the top of the foundation getting it ready for the plumber to rough the drain pipes in and back-fill with gravel so the basement floor can be poured. These are the footings for the load-bearing walls. The guys are standing by the footings for the walls where the stairs come down from the main floor.

The J-bolts on top of the foundation used to bolt down the seal plates for the rim joists are set towards the back of the foundation wall so the 6" framed exterior wall will leave enough room on the front for the brick. The bolts for the walls of the house that are stucco are more towards the front of the foundation wall-not a good thing if the foundation crew doesn't look at the plans before they set them. The tall metal straps on the corners are hurricane straps required by code so the big bad wolf can't blow our house down or in the event of a ground shaker hopefully not shake it off the foundation.

I don't think we have to worry about the basement floor curing too fast because of the heat we get around here in the summer time. The framers are scheduled to start Monday, January 3rd. I'm pretty sure a snow blower salesman will see me coming next fall based on what we've seen so far this year.