Since this is the first post, it has some quick background.
The rain has really wreaked havoc with our schedule this whole year. Despite having picked the excavator, cement guy, and septic designer back in March, nothing really was able to be done until June. Which made our July 2 delivery date kind of iffy.
But, we had already rented a place for three weeks starting July 1, ten minutes drive from our site, and decided that having a week of real vacation before being able to build might not be a bad thing. As the date got close and the weather continued to play games, we got even more stressed. But, things looked good at the end of June, to have our footings done July 1, and the rest of our foundation just after the fourth. Only a week from unloading to start of construction, which seemed fine. We picked up a metal shed from Lowes, figuring we could set that up during our week “off” and shift the more portable/expensive pieces into it during the week.
We had arrived at the site Friday afternoon to discover no footings. And no hole for our walkout basement. After a panicked call to our excavator, he arrived at 2pm and began work - torrential downpours on Wed had kept him from doing anything more than dig drainage ditches to try and dry out the area for our basement. We spent some time deciding on a location for the shed, and doing a little prep work, but we didn’t want to be in the way of the excavator and the dump trucks of gravel going up and down the drive, so we headed back to the rental for dinner and rest. That’s when we discovered an email from the camp kit place that we couldn’t quite fit everything into the truck, so our windows, door, staircase, etc would be scheduled for another date, when we were ready for it. This was actually a good thing, since we didn’t yet have the basement we had originally figured on storing the windows in.
Saturday our delivery was scheduled for 8am. We had two friends, Andy and John, the two of us, and Number One and Two sons. Two was supposed to be our photographer; I figured One and I added up to one average adult, and the recommendation was for four people to unload.
We should have had at least six - preferably professional movers. Our friends went above and beyond, even though Andy had some tendonitis issues and couldn’t help with the super-heavy stuff. We did manage to unload the truck, which was the most grueling part of the work. Toward the end we were just getting stuff out of the truck so the driver could go; then we had to actually shift the stuff out of the way of the path for the concrete trucks on Tuesday.
Number Two son had been put to work, as there was a four foot cube full of tiny pieces of wood - we had to empty it to move the box out, then made Two fill it up again out of the way. He shifted a few of the smaller boards too, but eventually wandered off out of the way to read. Number One did a ton of work, but once the truck was empty he climbed up on a stack of OSB and took a nap.
Andy had to leave once the truck was gone; John stayed for lunch and helped shift posts and joists until we had all in there final-for-now locations. I don’t know what we would have done without him, as there were three super-heavy basement posts there was no way I could shift, in addition to the fifteen or so main and loft posts. After John left we broke out the tarps, covered the piles because there is yet more rain predicted for Sunday. Then, moving pretty slowly, we cleaned up the trash, loaded the cars back up with the coolers and such, and headed back to the rental.
Suddenly, not being able to do anything on the site until Friday at least doesn’t sound that bad. I doubt we’ll be able to move by tomorrow, but maybe by Friday or Saturday we can face the pile again. At least after this, we move everything at our own speed, not lifting every single piece of the house in one morning.
So unloading was a lot tougher than expected, and we should have rounded up more help, but we got through it without any injuries. Hopefully John and Andy are still speaking to us - really, we owe them both big-time.
Pictures will be coming tomorrow. I don’t have the energy to fuss with them tonight, and our web connection here is sloooow!
