The Pour!

We poured our concrete on July 4, and it went perfectly! Thanks to Lafarge Concrete and especially Anmar Pumping, and of course to Ray at Macdamian Cribbing. We have solid basement walls that are holding up. More posts to come.

Almost ready to pour

Tomorrow we pour concrete. In the meantime, we are working on setting up our temporary campsite so that we don't bake or get rained on - updates as we get back to internet country. We are planning on getting wireless internet access within the next couple of weeks.

Building a Basement

We are going with ICF for the basement. And we are building a 40' x 40' house, with a walkout on the north side of the site.

We started with this:



We got the site dug out, and a driveway created:





Now we have a place for our logs (to the southwest, uphill of the site) and we can get the hole dug.





Time for Footings!



And concrete!



And now, ICF!

Where did this start?

This adventure started in April of 2007, when we found our piece of land.




That's Dave, standing in the build site. Someone had cleared it, and made a big woodpile at the bottom of the hill, right where our walkout basement door was going to go.



So we spent weekends during the winter of 07-08 burning the pile, and enjoying picnics in the snow.




In March of '08, we received two shipments of logs from Whitecourt.


This spring, we moved our trailer onto the site and started inviting friends and family to come and get to work.



This is my youngest, Sharaya, getting after that bark!

Peeling

Deb is working on one of our first logs. The 'Gator' in the background is a loaner from Deb's brother-in-law, who will make an appearance later in this blog.

Deb is using a 'Spud', a recommended tool for peeling logs. We may borrow a drawknife to deal with branches and knots.

As of June 14, we have 4 logs peeled and 20 more ready to go in our logyard.

The House on the Side of the Hill

The Hole is Dug.

Where Are We?

Our new address will be 12 Henry Trail, Belle Vista Estates, Lac Ste. Anne County, Alberta. I actually don't know what our new postal code is.

I think we got the nicest lot in the development, but I may be biased.

Google Map directions from Edmonton (my old workplace downtown):

Driving Directions
Link: <http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=16534567466914935474,53.546968,-113.487393&saddr=10365+97+St+NW,+Edmonton,+AB+T5J+0A1+(JE+Brownlee)&daddr=53.82376,-114.084091&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=11&sll=53.71459,-113.840332&sspn=0.280795,0.6427&ie=UTF8&z=11>

Start address: JE Brownlee 10365 97 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 0A1
End address: Range Rd 13

Start at: JE Brownlee 10365 97 St NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 0A1

1. Head north on 97 St NW toward 105 Ave NW - 2.6 km
2. Slight left to stay on 97 St NW - 9.0 km
3. Continue on HWY-28 E - 7.6 km
4. Turn left at HWY-37 - 21.0 km
5. Turn right at HWY-44/Range Rd 264 Continue to follow HWY-44 - 10.3 km
6. Turn left at HWY-642/Township Rd 560 Continue to follow HWY-642 - 16.1 km
7. Turn right at Range Rd 13 - 2.3 km

Arrive at: Range Rd 13

Blogging the Build

Welcome to the Block Family Log Home Build Blog. We are building our home west of Morinville, northeast of Onoway, just past Sandy Beach. Drop by and pick up a tool - we have plenty of work to do!

We've come a long way already, but you're just in time for the exciting stuff. The next step is putting up the ICF for the basement walls, and ...peeling!!! Lots of logs to peel, catalog, and then we need to figure out how we are going to lift and move those logs.

Lots to come!