Pouring the slab

Once we had the dirt up to the right level a plumbing company layed out the plumbing, Kyle layed out the electrical, and Kyle and David layed out the visqueen and the wire mesh. A mason company poured and smoothed the slab.

More Strong Foundation

Once the footer is poured and dried we had to remove all of the footer forms (wood). Then we had to dig through all of the sand that was "inside" the house. Since this lot has a lot of oak trees we had to remove all organic material (tree roots, etc) so that as the years pass the dead organic material doesn't leave air pockets which would lead to our slab sinking in places. Some people would just get rid of the old dirt and not do this sifting process, but that is not as cheap. Once we cleaned out all the exhisting dirt the footer wall built (not by us). Once the footer wall was set up we spent weeks pouring and compacting new dirt up to the appropriate level for the slab. The kids were fantastic with helping out with this entire process. They pulled out roots, they ran the compactor, the threw dirt, etc.

Laying a Strong Foundation

Building a strong foundation in Florida is quite different than what I was used to living up north in Wisconsin. As you can see our soil is sand. And our water table does not allow for basements. Therefore the first thing you build for the foundation are the footers. Since our soil is pure sand we had to use the wood to keep the sides that were dug from caving in and then you set up the rebar in the footer cells. We thankfully did not do all this work ourselves.

New House

We have been busy building our new house. We started in September 2010. We have had our entire family and extended family, sub contractors and friends help in the process. I don't have time to write down more details so instead I will spend the time I do have uploading photos for viewing. Thank you to Sandy for taking documenting the building process in photos.

Kyle and I both love Bungalow homes so this home has been an attempt at a comtemporary Bungalow.

The west side view--shows the beginning of the back porch


front view