When Mike Goheen of Goheen Construction said we needed to fill in around the foundations and septic, it made sense. Who would have thought we’d need 40 (yup, that’s 4 – zero!) loads of fill. And yes, it is as expensive as you are probably imagining. But  how it looks make it easier to get over the sticker-shock. Here’s some photos from the beginning to now.

Because the land has a deep slop, and is about 8″ of earth on top of limestone, we could only dig down a bit, then have to build up.

We had to fill in around the foundation walls to protect them from water and frost.

So now the foundations and the site is ready for the houses to be delivered!

This was an awesome week for our house in the County, as Mike Goheen from Goheen Construction was able to put in the septic system.

Mike has been great through this whole process. Mike’s not pushy, you can have whatever you want, but he will let you know where you should spend the extra dollars and when the standard septic layout will work just fine. Part of his service is to put together the septic plan for the permit, and arrange for the inspections.

So if you need a new or replacement septic system, and you are in the County/Trenton/Belleville area, I’d totally recommend Goheen Construction!

There are so many expressions of artistry. I’m about to show you the work of a truly creative guy, our dear friend Norm Fischer.

Norm is an electrician by trade, which is pretty cool on it’s own, but it gets even better, as Norm can see different and creative ways to take old light fixtures and re-imagine them. Norm has taken a variety of different TDSB lighting, some that had been in local schools for over 70 years, and worked his magic. Take a look at the before and almost after – these will be even more stunning when installed in the house!

Front Hall Light

Sconces

Island Pendants

Dining Room Fixture

The piece of wood is from Roca Wordworks in Scarborough. You have to image this slice of tree upside-down and adhered to the ceiling. Then the pendants are going to hang down…it will make sense when it’s installed and I can share photos then.

Garage Door Lights

These are right up there with our favourites – they are just so retro!

Exterior Entryway Lighting

So there we were, a few weeks ago, checking out the base for the foundation work that was about to begin. I walked by Mike Goheen’s excavator, like I have done a million times before, but this time, a robin came flying out at me. And not just a pass-by, this was a full on attack. Her wings came so close to my head I swear I felt the feathers touch me. Now,  I may have let out a little-girl scream, but hey, it was scary! Anyway, I went to check out where the robin came from, and what did I see – the wonder of nature! Right there on Mike’s excavator.

So we went and checked out how we go about moving a robin’s nest. We found out that you actually can’t. If the mamma robin comes back to where she left her eggs she won’t go looking for nest, those little blue eggs are toast. No, I didn’t say “on toast”, that would be gross! Anyway, we were told that if there was under 4 eggs the mom would start a new nest. If there was 4 eggs she wouldn’t nest again for the rest of the Spring. When we first saw the nest there was only 3 eggs. But we knew that there was no place near Mike’s excavator to move the nest, so we just had to leave it as is.

That was 2 weeks ago. In the past 2 weeks Mike has moved his excavator 3 or 4 times, and has also been using it almost every day.

We thought for sure the nest and eggs were going to be gone the next time we came to the land.

But our mamma robin was very persistent. Not only did she drop another egg (yup, there were 4!). And no matter where Mike and her little blue eggs moves, she was right there with them.

This weekend we went down to The County to check out the foundation walls put in by Custom Forming. We were pretty excited to see the progress of the houses, so it didn’t even cross my mind to check in on the robin’s eggs. And once again, walking behind the excavator, mamma robin did a warning fly-past to say “stay away!”.

I went behind the excavator to check out the nest and woo hoo – we have new baby robins! Now some people say we have enough robins in The County. And we were even told it’s not fully necessary we try and save the robin eggs. But we couldn’t be happier with the first baby robin’s born under our watch!

Hey, did you ever wonder why robin eggs are blue? I was checking it out and although it’s not exactly known why, they think it’s to protect them from the UV rays of the sun. Nesting in Mike’s excavator seems to work pretty well too!

You might be wondering why you haven’t heard any updates lately….yup, you got it, not much is going on! The excavation continues. We hit a snag, and like most snags, they can be solved, you just have to open your wallet a bit wider. The thing is we have had to dig down to put in the foundation for 3 of the 4 corners of the Main House, but that 4th corner is actually too low. It’s due to the slope of the land, which I’m sure we will be grateful for once the rain and snow comes….but for now….

So Mike Goheen will be building up this corner with something called Granular “B”…250 tonnes to be exact. And this needs to be compacted, and to make sure it’s all safe, the compaction needs to be tested. One test per foot, three feet required, ca-ching!

But everything is looking great. We have some really great limestone slabs that will be well used in the landscaping. And we really appreciate the efforts of Mike and Goheen Construction. He’s taking the time needed to make sure we get the best solution and bringing us value. Looking forward to getting over this “challenge” and getting the foundation work done. The house is starting to be put together, but that’s another blog!

Here are some photos from our last visit. Check out Manuel, he’s thinking he can help Mike out with the excavation!

Mike Goheen, from Goheen Construction, is doing the excavation for our build. He and his guys Mike and Kevin put the driveway in a few weeks back, and now they are digging the foundations. Yup, plural. Two foundations. We’re going to have a main house, a garden suite and the garage will be slab on grade.

We are really happy with the progress the guys have made. Mike is in a holding pattern right now as we figure out what to do with the big hunk of Canadian Shield that’s under the main house. It’s also under the garden suite, but we’re just going to build up. The thing is it’s really important to us that we have the front porch of our house just above grade so we don’t have to have a railing. That means the crawl space needs to be 3 feet plus below grade. But we have our best man on the job! Here’s some photos of the excavation.