Finding My Footing, er, Footer

Hello! I'm getting so excited to get to show you some of the finishes I'll be using! The pretty stuff! But, I have  to crawl before I can walk. So, before I can show you any of that, I'm showing you something important. Not pretty, but important. As in, the house needs to stand upright for another hundred years or so. We now have a foundation! When the excavator was here, they dug the footer at the same time in an interest to save time and money. They completed all the excavation within a two day span. Concrete from the old garage, driveway, and patio first, and the footer on the second day.

It's a good day when you wake up and there's one of these babies in your yard!

The first thing we (and by we, I mean not me, in any capacity)  needed to do was measure the dimensions of the addition.  We decided in the planning phase that the size will be 22x24. We couldn't really go any bigger than that because, in my area, you need to keep your permanent structures three feet from the property line. And towards the back of the property we run into the well. We also don't have municipal water in my little village. So, that's how we settled on the size. As I mentioned before, in this post, I had already called our utility providers to mark lines that could pose a problem. My contractor went ahead and dug for the lines where the gas company had marked them, just to be sure.

Yahtzee!

So, now we where ready to go. 

They are checking the depth here. It needs to be between 32 and 36 inches deep which is below the freeze line. The following day, they were ready to have the concrete guys come and get started. And then this little guy showed up in my yard!

We had originally planned for four inches of concrete, but the block guys said, "no dice" so we ended up with eight inches.

They let it set up over night, and came back the next day to set the block. 

We ended up with five rows of block on top of the eight inches of concrete.

And this is it after the block layers were finished. The block set up for a couple and then it was time to backfill.

This is seven tons of fill sand, and we might need some more. But, it's actually starting to take shape now! Next week they will start the framing, and I can't wait!

These guys are on a break. See you next time!