The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fail because it had it’s foundation on the rock. Matthew 7:25. Everyone knows to have a stable house you must first have a solid foundation. It is the single most important aspect to building a house. The amount of time, detail and hard work that goes into building one is truly incredible. I have to say, it was so exciting to see this process come to life!

The day Randall and I hopped in the UTV and explored the land, we knew exactly where we wanted the house to be. There is actually quite a bit of timber on our acreage and it had been very overgrown. As we were slowly making our way through some old trails we came upon a perfect little clearing. It had actually been cleared and planted as a food plot to attract deer. But oh my, the way the sunlight came through and the calmness we felt in that spot, we both knew that this is where home would sit. The funny part of the story is, it just so happened to be almost directly in the middle of our land LOL. So, we now have an extremely long driveway but it makes it so sweet to drive down and enjoy the view.

This might be my absolute favorite thing about the house. A long country driveway!

Excavation started with clearing out timber to be able to build the driveway. Randall wanted to add a pond if we could and it just so happened to work perfectly. We had to build up the driveway quite a bit. As you can see in the “before” pic there was a line of timber, but it also had a ravine that had to be filled in so the driveway was more level with where the house would be sitting. This was the perfect foundation for the pond dam. We had the BEST excavation operator, Brad. He is actually my SIL’s father! He listened to Randall describe what he pictured and he made it look even better than we dreamed. He was also great about creating ways for water to drain towards the pond and keeping it away from the house as much as possible. Good drainage is huge! Definitely something you want to make sure is a priority if you are building. Below is a picture of pond filing progression. I know it might sound redneck, but we couldn’t wait to go out after every rain to see how much farther it had filled haha! Hey- we had to look on the bright side. We had a crazy amount of rain this summer, it delayed progress so much. At least there was something really cool that came from it. It apparently takes most ponds a couple of years to fill but ours is nearly filled and it only took three months.

Now for the reaaallllyyy fun stuff. The foundation! Call me crazy, but I think each new step is even more fun than the last…it’s probably just the excitement and the affects of tiny house living but I’m pumped. First step, setting the forms. Whoa, did I grossly underestimate how much work that is for those men AND how much time that truly takes. The crew we hired was amazing. They were efficient and precise. It started by building the footings. These are short concrete walls that lay the base of the foundation walls. Then, the foundation wall forms are built piece by piece on top of the footings into the shape of the foundation. Guys, I don’t know about you, but I’m for some reason so terrible at visualizing how things go together. They made it look so easy. It’s so cool to see people’s God given gifts and to watch them use them. After the forms were set for the foundation walls, they poured concrete in them and had to let them cure for a few days. After they were cured, they popped the forms off and then it was time to prep all the floors. Randall and a friend had to run all the plumbing and sewer lines for the house before the floor could be rocked then poured. Who knew there were so many steps!? Next up was rocking over that and then the floor pour! This was really fun because you could finally see what the foundation looked like complete.

Next up on the foundation was the sealing. Oh the memories are so fresh. Remember me mentioning the crazy amount of rain we’ve had this summer? Yeah, so that doesn’t pair well with foundation work LOL. The day we had the big pour on our foundation walls was also the day we had a crazy storm that caused lots of flash flooding in our neck of the woods. If you follow me on Instagram you probably remember the stories of us trying to get to our house! So many roads were flooded that day and it was quite an adventure to find our way there. Due to so much rain, parts of the dirt work actually caved in and trapped some of their forms and covered all our footings in mud. Yikes! We were pumping water out and hand shoveling mud for what seemed like an eternity. Sealing a foundation is a process of essentially waterproofing the outside. Therefore, keeping water from getting in the basement and extending the life of the foundation. This process is SO important and you can not skip a step. We actually did this process ourselves. Do I recommend doing that, NO LOL. My husband has the skills and we had the connection (my dad) of getting the sealant and it saved us a lot of money in labor. Sooooo back to the mud. Oh so much mud. We had to clear the mud off the footings in order to be able to apply the sealant. I am pretty sure I’m scarred for life from that project. We lost some mud boots, some sanity and tons of sweat! We’ve done A LOT of remodeling and have had some really not fun parts of projects, but this by far takes the cake. As you will see in the pics below, the sealant is like a thick tar texture. You have to use a putty knife to apply the thicker product on any holes and where the walls meet the footings, then you use rollers to roll on the thinner mixture. This “thinner” mixture is not what I’d describe as thin. I’m pretty sure I used muscles that I didn’t know existed haha! Randall and I, along with our two oldest daughters and his crew worked our tails off to get this done before we left for our summer vacation.

The final step to completing the foundation was adding the drainage around the base. These are laid on top of the rock just below the footings so it keeps any water running away from the floors, therefore keeping your basement dry! After that was complete, Brad our excavation operator, backfilled with rock and dirt partially and will finish this after the floor system is installed this weekend. You can not backfill around the walls until that is on as it ties everything together. Adding pressure around the concrete without the floor can cause cracking or actually even move walls. So it’s a big no no. I will be so excited to see how it looks without giant dirt piles everywhere! Things are moving along friends. I’m so excited to show you the framing that has been completed in the basement and what the install process of the floor joists looks like. Stay tuned! Exciting things happening at Shahan Land in the next few weeks. Ta-ta for now!

The Man Who Built His House on the Rock

Sourdough Pizza Crust

Shahan Land