Logs Logs and Logs

The last log is in place, now I can start with interior walls.

Laborday weekend

We got a lot of help on laborday weekend

Swedish Craftmanship

Lenas dad came over to help us

It is growing

It is so exiting to see the walls take form.

Time for logs

The first logs are in place, it's a lot of drilling that has to be done before secure to the sill plate.

We have a slab

Ready to pour

Many thanks to Håkan and Mark, they helped me over the weekend to mix cement and fill the footings, I will have an inspection tomorrow and then I can make the slab.

First floor

I have done the rebars and ground plumbing, now I can pour cement

First Floor

Now I have done th footings for the first floor.

Next will be to do rebars and plumbing and anchorbolts for the walls.

Basement

We are now done with the walls to the basement. Will have an inspection next week and then I can fill the rest of the walls with cement and then backfill.

Filling the walls

Mixing concrete to fill the cells, half the wall is now done for the basement.

Thank you Hakan

Hakan came down two weekends to help me out, it is greatly appreciated.

The Masons

Stefan and Jack are working on the basement.
This is the last row of the large bricks and after this it should go a little easier. These bricks weigh about 60 pounds, so the guys do not need to go to the gym, they are building muscles as they are building a basement.

Now we have a slab for the basement

It is a lot of rebars

Finally, we can begin!!!

Well, the three weeks took five months with a lot of frustration. Our building engineer is not the fastest man on the planet but he finally got it done.
We have now poured the concrete for the basement slab and had great help from our friends Jack, Mark and Gil, without them it would have been impossible since Stefan was really sick with the flu.
We tried to add some pictures but this blog is not cooperating at this time but as soon as it does we'll put some in.

November 22nd, We have finally received the blue prints!

After almost 3 months we have finally received the calculations from the building engineer. This guy has been stalling and making every excuse in the book of why he didn't make the 2-4 week deadline that he promised us. Stefan met up with him at Riverside County to file the calculations for the building permit and they told him it should take 2-3 weeks before we get the permit.
We are hoping to start building in the beginning of January and we will post more pictures as we progress.
One good thing about this is that Stefan broke his toe this last weekend so he is a little incapacitated and can't do much work anyway...........

More trees

Pure Perseverance

Our wonderful neighbours Mark (in front) and Janet were kind enough to give us some palm trees from their yard. It took Mark and Stefan 3 days and 2 tractors to get this tree
in place.

Future Wine Cellar