Setting grade and backfilling.

October 10th marked the first day of backfilling the foundation and setting the final grade on the lot.

Foundation is essentially complete.

Today (Oct 8) the final cube of bricks was delivered and the masons completed the foundation. Damp-proofing was also completed.

No need for damp-proofing on side/exterior walls of garage.

Floor plans, elevations, and site plan...2nd pass.

My initial pass at embedding the plans as pdf files ended up bogging things down, so I decided to take a mulligan.  What I've done is taken a pic of each pdf from my desktop monitor, which is a bit pixely but it's better than the freakin' pdfs.

Front of home.

Rear of home; the enclosure to the left of the garage service door is our outdoor shower/dog washing station.  It was a must-have!

Left side of home.  Smaller garage door will be 8' x 8'; larger measures 8' x 18'.

 

Right side of home.

First floor plan.  Dig the large kitchen island! 

Second floor plan.  Cyndy opted for a cozy, private writing nook in lieu of a walk-in closet in the right rear bedroom.

The site plan.  Obviously, the house is the dark object.

Foundation work, days 2 & 3.

The masons don't mess around.  These guys are total pros, and legit craftsmen.  Cyndy treated them to donuts & coffee in the morning of Oct 5, but that small token doesn't begin to properly express how gratified we are with their work.

Here's the official Mecklenburg County building permit.

Piers for the front porch.

These piers will support the "wrap-around" (side) portion of the front porch.

Right side of the home.

Garage interior foundation wall.

Close-up of the front porch left corner pier.  Gorgeous brick!

Cyndy said the interior piers look like Martians.  I prefer to think of them as a bunch of Atlas clones, standing strong and ready to carry our world on their shoulders! :-)

Long view toward the front left of the home.  Foundation almost complete!

A proper foundation.

The style of our home, combined with the site topography and soil consistency, dictated that our crawlspace foundation be of the Pier and Curtain Wall variety.  Construction of the foundation began on Oct 3.  The excellent masons accomplished a lot on Day One.

Front left corner of the home.

 This corner will eventually be our screened porch...all 16' x 12' of it!

 This angle is looking through the garage toward the kitchen and the far wall is the family room.

 Three cubes of "The Ashley" brick from Boral's Salisbury, NC plant.  Very nice product.

Gained our footing.

On Oct 2, the footings were poured.  Three loads (about 27 cubic yards total) of 2500 PSI mix were required to fill all of the excavated areas.

 Love the snazzy optic-yellow drum!  Dude driving the mixer looked like a member of ZZ Top.

We're in a rut.

Actually, trenches.  For the footings. :-)
Surveyors plotted and flagged for the foundation yesterday (Monday, Sep 30) and today the trenches were dug.  The footings will be poured tomorrow, pending the inspector's thumbs-up.  Foundation work should begin Friday or Monday (Oct 7).