Excavation and rock hammering

As I write this post, the excavation is completed and the foundation work is scheduled to begin next week. The hole seems huge. As we look at the hole, we have to keep in mind that it is deeper and wider than the final house footprint (space is needed for foundation work and the footers go below the level of the floor). And the house footprint itself is large because of the ranch design.

While digging we hit rock. Yuk. Not totally unexpected, but it will add to the expense of the excavation. Below is a video of "rock hammering," which is used to shatter the rock. Fortunately, the rock was weak enough shatter, otherwise we would have needed to blast.

Below are a couple of shots with of the nearly final excavation.

If you see where I am standing in the top photo, just below me will be the walk-out part of the basement. This still needs to be dug out and there is lots of "final" grading to do once the foundation is set.

Today, we broke ground!

On a warm and sunny July 6th, we finally broke ground! Below are a photo and video to prove it. Tonight, we are opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

Click image below to start the video.

Overall design of the house

Below are a few drawings that show: (1) the placement of the house on the lot; (2) the overall look; and (3) the floor plan. You probably will need to zoom in with your browser to see these drawings.

Placement on Lot
First, here is how the home is placed on the lot (0.8 acres). North is about straight up and the driveway enters the lot from the street at the bottom and sweeps to the east. The 3-car garage is at the rear of the home, at about a 45 degree angle from the house. Many of the trees shown have been removed at this point (as you can see from the video in the previous post).

Overall Look
Below are a couple of snapshots from the 3D model of our home. The top shot gives an overall view of the home and the bottom is more detail of our master bedroom area and the approximate view from the street. The screenshots are from the Revit program the architects (TKP in Golden) used to design the home. The ground will slope up as you go from the bedroom (at left) toward the garage (at right).

Floor Plans

Below is the floor plan for the first level (simplified from the final construction drawing). It has 2,800 sq ft. finished. For scale, the Great Room/Kitchen room is 40' long from top to bottom.

Below is a snap shot from the construction drawings of the lower level, which will have 1,600 sq ft. finished and has three bedrooms for guests. It shows lots of detail, but you can still get the overall feel of the lower level. The empty space in the upper right is unfinished storage (about 1,000 sq. ft.).