By 8:00 Friday morning, the first wall was lifted into place.
An hour or so later, most of the garage was up.. If you look closely in the center of the photo toward the top, you’ll see our neighbors sitting in lawn chairs watching the show below. They babysit for their 2-year-old grandson who thinks our house project is the best show ever! And Frank, the grandpa, brought his hot dog truck down to our property and gave the crew free hot dogs and soda. What a great neighbor!!!
Byt the end of the day, the garage was complete, and the back wall of the entry hall (center section on photo) and the bathroom wall (the section with a window) were up as well. They’ll finish on Monday!

We’ve accomplished A LOT this week.
At the beginning of the week, the excavating crew — Theron and Martin — leveled the footprint of the house and put down a layer of gravel. Then they dug a trench around the front and sides. The back isn’t trenched because it’s dug into the hill, so has a four-foot wall of shale behind it.
This photo is taken from the property above us and shows the footprint of the house with the trench around the front. On the far left, toward the top, you can see the sand mound.
On Friday morning, Superior Walls arrived with a crane and a tractor-trailed loaded with walls. The crane is a 60-ton crane with a boom that reaches 110 feet.
The walls are insulated on the inside and concrete on the outside. You can see how they are made here or here. Stay tuned. More walls to come.

We’re in the home stretch on the excavating. The leaching field is finished (the white square is a layer of stone covering the fly ash),
And now Martin and Theron are cutting out the shale the actual dimensions of the house. Once that’s done, the’ll dig trenches along the perimeter for the insulated walls, which are due to come in later this week. We’re starting to get really excited to see some actual house go up!