This week Javier, Filimon and the guys from JB Concrete finished forming the walls for the concrete to be poured on the 23rd (next Monday). Take notice of the tall “pole”. That will be the “tree” wrapped in bark which will serve as the center of the spiral staircase leaving up to the top of the turret. The actual meditation room on the top of the turret will sit on top of this pole, high up in the air with amazing views in all directions. I can’t wait to see this completed! Thanks for all your hard work guys!
It’s always exciting to see the concrete being poured! This week, the footings were poured. JB Concrete did an incredible job with this house- thank you guys! As you can see from the photos, we poured the concrete into the footing forms at the beginning of the week, then the guys started to frame the vertical walls. What a difference a week makes. If you look closely at the photos, you’ll also see I added a heart to the footings, as this is a house built on a foundation of love and kindness, so it seemed only fitting to memorialize this into the physical foundation of the house.
This week the house started to take shape- literally! Thanks to Javier and Filimon from JB Concrete and their incredible team for all of your help. These guys turned a bunch of dirt into the beginning of a home. This week was spent laying out the forms, then placing the rebar inside the forms to reinforce and hold the future concrete in place. Also, thanks to Darryl and Mike for installing a time-lapse camera to take one photo every 15 minutes throughout the build. These photos will be compiled into a video to show the progress to date. Thanks guys!
Now that the septic tank has been installed, we can move forward with the foundation. This week we focused on final site prep and relocation of dirt (piled on the property), to allow the survey to be completed, which marks the perimeter walls of the house. Thank you to Eastside Surveying! Now that the dirt has been relocated and the site is marked, we can start the excavation for the footings and foundation walls. We also removed a tree that was too close to the foundation wall, but since the tree was so big and beautiful, we kept the lower 25’ of the tree. This fall it will be carved into a bear and some cubs, by a local artist.
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!
