House as of June 1st

With everything feeling like it was moving slowly up until now, I am very impressed with how quickly things seem to be going.  Last you saw on here, they finished with all the footings (underground rebar and concrete) and they started the cinder block.  Look at how much they did in just a few days.

When we got there on Sunday we saw there was so much
done!  I'm standing in the front of the house,
looking at the front porch.

They finished all of this the next day.

These ropes span the whole house and will insure the
pillars underground are super straight

Wider view
You can see extra blocks laying around, ready to be used.
There are like 10 guys working.  One brought his little
boy.  I love seeing kids learning a trade.

This is a view from the back corner of our house.
This is where we (the family) will enter the attached garage.

They have so many of the pillars done!

See those guys doing an assembly line to get blocks to
the middle of the house?  They loaded up a pickup
truck and are tossing them one by one to our fireplace base.

Whoa.  I feel like I'm on a tilt-a-whirl.

Looking down the wall around the tornado shelter,
you can see rebar coming up from the ground,
plus extra metal around the mortar for even more stability.
This metal stuff is all around the house.  It's more than
code requires, but I appreciate the extra step!

View from Kara's room

View from the front porch

View from master bedroom, I think.

Behind the house, looking forward

I'm going to do a slide show of the house
being built from this angle.  :-)

Michael's boat garage.  They put temporary wood boards
around the corner to hold string.  That string
measured where they were to build the cinder block foundation.

One more look back at the house.  The corner closest to
me is the master bedroom.

Michael's boat garage

View of the house from Michael's boat garage

I really wanted the house to be on a slab, but the ground
slopes a lot more than it looks like.  9 feet to be
exact!  So, when I told Bert a crawl space was okay, I made
him promise it would be as sturdy as a slab.
All of these pillars make me think Bert took me
seriously, bless him.

Michael standing in his boat garage, visualizing.  :-)

Kara could care less about the progress of the house.  lol!
Every step fascinates me, but she just wants it done.

Pretty cool, huh?

That is just from Friday to Monday.  I LOVE 10-12 people working at once.  I'm so glad we are moving at such a great pace.  I'm meeting with Bert tomorrow to talk about windows and doors and stone.  We are also going to get electricity and water put in our names.  While I meet with him, I'm going to ask for a rough finish date.  I'm hoping he says Feb 1st.  Only God knows!

UPDATE:  He said no way.  We are thinking 10 months from now - April-ish.  Blah.