Foundation Phase 3... Final Phase

moisture barrier with tape along the seems

Phase three is officially complete. Thanks to the beautiful weather, our building team was able to complete the last phase of the foundation and pour the slab this week.  With the plumbing and electrical for the floor outlets run, the lot was ready for the final steps. The process began with making sure that the fill was compacted and leveled. Next, the moisture barrier was placed using special tape to seal all the seams of the barrier tarp and the slab was pre-treated to prevent termintes. Since there is no access to the back or side of the home lot for the concrete truck, they had to bring in a super long concrete boom pump to pour the concrete. They use laser levels and special tools to make sure that the finished product on grade slab is perfectly level throughout the home.

Once the ocncrete was poured and set, lines/grooves were created throughout the foundation. These lines allow for us to control where the concrete will crack or settle (which apparently is ineveitable with all concrete) so that we do not end up with rogue cracks in the foundation. The sub contractors then used a power trough followed by some hand troughing to smooth out the concrete so that it is smooth as glass and not only looks nice in the garage and poorches but allows for a smooth and level surface for laying the flooring inside the home.

pouring the foundation

large boom extending from truck

pouring, spreading, and eventually troughing

Now we are ready for framing! We met with our builder, friday to go over the excessively long list of questions, add ons, and changes that we had to the plans now that we are rapidly approaching what I like to refer to as a "decisions stick" or "no going back" time. Basically we can soon no longer scrutinize the plans and peruse Houzz and Pinterest for new ideas because this home will have officially transformed from one dimensional paper drawings with hypothetical ideas to an actual three dimensional framed structure approved by engineers and inspectors as is (gulp and eeek and yay!). Our add on list included:

• Move attic entrance to more middle of garage so that the pull down stairs do not get in the way of the future work bench
• Enlarge kitchen window to add 16in windows on either side
• Built in nook between the studs in shower for shampoo, etc
• Bench in master shower
• Add outdoor electrical wiring for lights on either side of garage
• Outside outlets around perimeter of house
• Place kitchen outlets under cabinets instead of on wall where backsplash would go (not sure about this as it would mean electrical boxes in our cabinets)
• Hide the garbage disposal switch
• Outlets in roof overhang for Christmas lights
• Run conduit to the front and back for future lighting
• Wiring for a doorbell (our builder clarified that this is standard and included)
• Add cable jacks 
• Set up for RO at kitchen sink
• Speaker pre-wiring
• Pre-wiring for alarm system
• Gutters outside/rain barrel system 
• Interior wall insulation
• Options/cost for doing blue tooth wiring for some kind of "smart hub" or central control system 
• Eventually we will probably glass in (or do the accordion glass doors) the back patio. At that time we will obviously want the option for air back there. Is there anything that we can do now to make that more cost effective/possible in the future?  (turns out we may need to just add in another air system but this may put us over our allowed residential amp capacity. Our builder is looking in to this for us).

Our builder also had us pick and finalize our window decision. We went with a colonial grill style throughout the home. This will also be the style for our doors. 

window inspiration