Victory over Mud and Other Progress

When I left off, we were waist deep in mud and wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into.

Happily, the mud has abated and things have dried up considerably at our site. The slab plumbing rough-in is complete with the exception of the garage floor drains, and stacking of the upper level walls is in progress and planned to be complete by the end of this week in anticipation of road restrictions being lifted on or near May 1st.
We got our interior and exterior drain tile in place (finally!)

and I was able to call the excavator and have him come and backfill, so things are looking a little better and access to the house has greatly improved.

Most of our time at the site lately has been doing clean up and organizing materials and equipment in preparation for the foundation slab pour. The bracing for the upper portion of the walls in the living room will remain until the upper level concrete is placed, so we're working around that for now and planning to complete as much of the prep work for the foundation slab as possible in the coming couple of weeks. Once the bracing is down, we'll be in another mad race to get the under slab vapor barrier, insulation and PEX tubing in place. We're hoping to have the foundation slab poured by the second week of May, and assuming the wall pour happens on schedule, we'll be ready to hang steel for the roof at that point as well.

I'm feeling both excited and nervous that we're nearing a point where things will start happening very quickly, and it's a little overwhelming to think of everything I'll need to be taking care of in the next few months. Which is not even to mention what's ahead in terms getting our current home ready for market and preparing to move. Whew.

I spent a day last week with my builder uncle getting a lesson in window installation. Although he's a stick builder, it was good to get a handle on the basics and hopefully Vern and I will be able to install most or all of the smaller windows on our own. I'm also going to try and get in a framing lesson with him sometime soon so I'll be useful when it comes time to build our interior walls.

I've been struggling with finding a contractor for our interior stairs. It seems like metal fabricators either specialize in ornamental work (which we definitely do not require) and aren't interested in doing something basic, don't do residential, or never get back to me with a bid.

Also on my agenda:
Doing a few test slabs for our poured concrete countertops to get a better idea what's in store there and if I should start sourcing a plan B.
Drawing and planning for the poured concrete Ofuro tub in our master bathroom.
Finalizing the cabinet plan.
Finalizing exterior plan.