Grading continues on the site. This week was a biggie as the septic tank was installed. Since it’s located on the east side of the house, it had to be installed prior to starting the foundation for the house, as we won’t have access to that side once the foundation is in place. Thank you Mike and Columbia Land Services for your help in making this happen! We appreciate you!
Part of the excavation is bringing the utilities to the site. This week we dug the trenches to bury the conduit for the internet, as well as water and electricity. In order to dig this, our beautiful gravel driveway had to be dug up and right now we have a lot of mud. The good news is, electrical utility inspections are behind us and by the end of the week, we have a driveway to the home site. Yes, it’s quite muddy, but gravel and rocks are coming early next week.
This week we began the site preparation and preliminary grading. The site is naturally sloped from the west to the east, and from the north to the south.
Dreaming Bear Retreat will be slab on grade for the primary suite on the northwest portion of the property, and will slope down to the south east corner, with an exposed daylight basement level with guest rooms and rec room. Therefore, some of the dirt needs to be moved to allow us to form and pour the footings and foundations.
Thanks to Mike and Braden at Mike Carlson Excavating for the excellent job they did to prepare the site for this house.
Sustainability is so important to us and we wanted to have the smallest carbon footprint in creating this home. Due to local county fire prevention regulations, we were required to cut down trees in or near the footprint of the new build.
These trees were lovingly harvested from the property, milled ON-site, and are currently being dried in the garage, getting ready to be turned into beams for the great room, stair treads, ceiling decor, door and window trim, live-edge benches, bookshelves, and so much more.
Most of the harvested trees are Douglas fir, some are cedar and there are a few alder as well. Each piece of finished lumber will be “branded” with a 1.5″ circular brand (a bear) to show that it was grown, cut, milled and turned into lumber- never leaving the property. Imagine walking through this completed property and looking for the tiny bears all through the home, honoring a great connection to the trees and to the land.
Thank you to Hogan and Chris for all of their hard work, talent, and yes, love. These guys love what they do, are always happy, and are such “good for the soul” kind of people. We’re thrilled to have found them!