Compound & Concrete Ties

Here are the pictures of the final Mumford compound. I liken it to the Kennedy Compound, but I'm guessing the Kennedy's have indoor plumbing.

You can see our tent, the canopy that has the picnic table, the canopy that has the little play structure, kid picnic table, and the airplane teeter-totter.

Concrete ties are pieces of metal that go all the way through the cement wall and hold the forms in place when they are pouring the walls. Once the wall is done and the forms have been removed, the ties need to be broken off.

A wall with all the ties.

Close-up of a tie.

Kenyon breaking off concrete ties. I also helped with this task, just no good pictures!

Underground Plumbing & Grading

Still no logs. Here's what has been going on: The pipes were laid for the rough plumbing. This is everything that needs to go underneath the slab/basement floor. Once the pipes are laid then the basement gets filled with gravel, and the concrete slab can be poured (this is a next step).

They also did some grading which levels out the ground around the house.

Logs and Timing

You may have noticed something missing in every picture so far....LOGS! We're still waiting on them! The late rains and unusual spring storms created a big headache for the logging roads in Wyoming (per our logger) and the BLM wouldn't open the roads due to the conditions. Granted I want to have water to drink this summer, but did this have to be the year of late spring storms!?

We had hoped to get the roof on by snowfall because once the snow starts we won't be able to do any work if it's not somewhat weathered in. At this point, I'm not sure that's very likely based on our (mostly Kenyon's) work schedule and when we'll be able to be stacking logs. But, we're still hopeful - maybe the late spring storms will translate into late snow this year! Plus, we're not really looking forward to having to shovel out the basement, which would be necessary. I say "we" but let's face it, that job has Kenyon's name written all over it!

Every week it sounds like we might get logs the next week, so we'll see...

Camping Area

We needed to make an area for camping and a play area for the kids. Due to our slope issues we needed to level out an area and with all of the dreaded scrub oak we had to dig that all up. So, we decided to rent the small trackhoe from the local hardware store on a Saturday. I was up at the lot waiting with the kids for Kenyon to return. It seemed like it was taking forever!



Here's why---







The hardware store employee who hooked up the trailer forgot to check on the size of the ball. Luckily, there weren't other cars around at the time and no one was hurt. The truck got a little dented, but you'd never notice another dent in it. So, not to be dissuaded from his purpose, Kenyon got it reattached and headed back to work. It looked like fun, Kenyon tries to do a lot of work so I don't have to, but I think this was a time where he was having too much fun to let me anyway!





We needed two levels of flat area. The plan is to have a tent, a canopy with the picnic table, the airplane playset that came free with our swingset and a canopy for kids to play in. Because we have no shade and I am crazy because of the family proclivity for skin cancer, I was adamant about the canopies. They don't block everything, but at least it's something.





The community chipper came through the neighborhood a week earlier and we found some neighbors who weren't using all of their wood chips, so we got one truckload of their wood chips plus we have that huge mulch pile from last year. This is the first pad covered with mulch.




Here's the beginning of our compound. We still need to setup the play area (and the big picnic table), but at least we have a place for eating and the tent for naps for the kids.

Footings and Foundation

We decided to hire out all of the foundation work. Footing are the concrete supports for the basement walls which sit on top of them. First, they build a form for the footing and then pour the concrete.

Completed footings.

Next, they put up forms to pour the concrete walls into.

The view just keeps getting better with every new step of the project!

The forms are taken off and we're left with concrete walls for the basement!

There are two windows and a door on the downhill side of the basement.

The basement walls were then waterproofed before they started doing the backfilling.

House Plans

We are using the LHBA stock plans for a 40 foot x 40 foot home. We made a few minor modifications to the plans for aesthetics and our local engineer had to adjust a few things (i.e. snow load!). We will have a full walk-out basement, but will leave that unfinished for now, I think we have enough on our plate! Our septic is a bit of a challenge, but you can do anything if you're willing to pay! We're just looking at it, as anyone else who wants to build where we are is going to have to go through the same thing, so we're just hoping the investment will be worth it! The review time for the septic permit took about a month and some changes had to be made. But, I have to admit the plan review for the actual building permit was pretty painless. The Planning department did require some changes because the house was too tall, but those were made pretty quickly by our designer. Other than that, no changes were required! I like to think it was because of excellent preparation, but was probably more luck!

Paperwork and Fees required: (Fortunately 1-4 were taken care of by previous owner)
1) Soil Tests
2) Percolation Test
3) Water Table Monitoring
4) Hookup fee to Private Water Company
5) Topographic Survey
6) Septic Design
7) Recording on Deed that we need a Packed Bed Media Septic System
8) Land Use Permit
9) Approval for backup water from another water district also recorded on our deed
10) Documentation from Private Water Company that they'll give us water
11) Fire District Impact Fee
12) Building Plans, Site Plan, RESCheck (energy calculation), Engineering calcuations

There were a myriad of other county impact fees that were included in our building permit fee - but we have a building permit!!

Building the Road

The first work to be done this spring/summer was to build up our road. Because it is not a county road, we were responsible for anything that needed to be done. Eventually, the road needs to be big enough for fire trucks to come down and turn around (although I hope they never have to!) plus, we wanted the road to be OK for trucks delivering materials, etc. Due to the slope of our lot, we don't really have anywhere to put our logs when they arrive. Since we're going to be paying for the new road, we figure we can use the road and cul-de-sac to put the logs. Being the corporate-types we are, we tried offering "sponsorship" opportunities to everyone we know for the road project. But so far, no takers. I'm sure we could swing a road-naming for anyone interested....

This is what the road down to the cul-de-sac looked like pre-work.

Here's the road after they started building it up.

The cleared out cul-de-sac. The old cul-de-sac was less than half the size of what it was supposed to be.

This is how high they had to build up the cul-de-sac. I'm standing on our property line.



Here's the finished road and cul-de-sac!

Here's the new valley and lake views standing on the finished road. This will be similar to standing on the first floor of the house.

Fall 2009

We spent a lot of time during the late summer and fall of 2009 clearing parts of the property. The entire lot is covered in scrub oak. If you're not from the west, you may not be familiar with scrub oak. As I'm from the midwest, I had not heard of it. I'm sure people from around here are fond of it, but in my estimation it's the most worthless stuff you can imagine. It's a mix of a tree and shrub. It's short and not straight, so you can't use it for logs of any type and it's not tall enough for shade. Plus, it has very hard bark like a tree but is short with a lot of offshoots like a shrub. The roots are also really difficult to pull out because they spread out a lot underground. Thus ends my complaining of scrub oak.

We decided to get started on the clearing both to save money on excavating, but also to feel like we were accomplishing something. You can sort of tell how much we cleared.

We also wanted to clear a spot and put up a shed so we could store tools, etc up there. In order to put up the shed we had to clear the spot and a drive as well as level out the area. Kenyon made a pad complete with pipes to drain underneath the shed. The shed is back to the left in this picture. Again, you can sort of tell how much we cleared last fall.

With the leaves off, and some clearing done, you can see how our lake view is improving.

This is the massive mulch pile we made with a lot of the trees we cleared - but not even all of them! We decided to leave the pile there until spring when we might have need of it.

July 2009

We purchased our property in July 2009. It is 1.5 acres, and is fairly sloped, but OK for building. We are located in a fantastic recreation area in Utah. We're within about 15 minutes of 3 great ski resorts and about 5 minutes from a large reservoir for waterskiing, boating, fishing. There are also numerous hiking and biking trails. It's also not too far from Salt Lake City and Ogden. The location is also ideal because we're within 45 minutes of home, and it's the same distance for Kenyon to work. So, all in all, it would make a great place for a permanent residence or a vacation home.

The first picture is the road down to the lot. It is a private road owned/maintained by the homeowners and not the county. So far, none of the other owners of lots on this cul-de-sac have built.

This is the actual property.

Next is our view of the valley, and lastly is the view of the lake (trust me).