Forming a plan

Today, the concrete forms went up and the foundation was poured. We have the outline of a house! The guys from Custom Concrete out of Holland did a great job from the looks of it. Looking at it, I had a couple of questions, which were quickly answered by a quick call to Rich. There is no footing or foundation wall under one stall of the garage. Rich explained to me that that is so they can get a bulldozer or other machinery in to backfill before the garage floor is poured. Makes sense, now that I know that! The other question was about the walls under what will eventually be my workshop (off the back of the garage). I had assumed all along that the concrete would go all the way up to the floor of the shop. However, concrete poured walls are a lot more expensive than framed walls, and framed walls are plenty strong enough for what we need them for. So, the foundation walls are only as tall as they need to be above the ground. Again, makes sense when I think about it...and that's why we're using a builder!

The forms will come off tomorrow (Friday) and the foundation will be waterproofed. Then it sits while the concrete cures for about 10 days.
During the 10 days, we'll be pretty busy though. We have siding, shingles, cabinets, fixtures, and countless other things to select. And, the bids are almost all in, so we need to go through those with Rich and get our budget finalized (scary...) The goal right from the start is to eliminate any "allowances". In other words, we'll be selecting and pricing everything right from the start so that we can nail down the budget right off the bat. That way we can avoid any financial surprises and make sure the house is what we want for what we're willing to pay. That's the way Rich prefers to do it, and we are 100% behind it.

More to come once the forms come off!