It’s time for another House Build Update! We have hit a milestone on our build, called “Being Vertical”. This refers to the perimeter walls of the structure finally being put in place to give a third dimension to what was up-to-now a very flat structure. Being Vertical also refers to our preferred human state during waking hours, something every septuagenarian+ can appreciate! (If you haven’t yet reached septuagenarian status, you will have to take our word for it).

Rather than just a brief update with a nice photo, here’s a progression of nice photos that show the progress to date.

The first real evidence of activity on the project was Clearing the Lot. What was once a jungle of bushes, trees, and brambles was transformed into an open, buildable lot.

It sat like that for much longer than we had hoped, but finally along came some more men and equipment, and a bunch of dump trucks full of fill dirt, and Grading commenced.

Wade, the magician with the small (and very nimble) Bobcat tractor, built a beautiful pad on which our house would eventually stand. And very soon after that Hurricane Ian came along and washed down all the sharp, beautiful edges until we could hardly see where the house would stand. But not to worry! More men and equipment arrived after the skies cleared and the winds died, and out of the flat pile of dirt emerged trenches into which wooden concrete pad forms were placed.

The forming work stopped at about 90% completion to allow yet another crew of workers to place all the under-slab piping and conduits, and the Rough Plumbing milestone was nailed.

With all the under-slab stuff installed, the foundation slab crew returned and finished all the wood forms installation, then placed all the steel footing and wall tie-downs and the plastic vapor barrier that will keep the notoriously high Florida water table out of our house!

A few days later the gloriously beautiful Concrete Pump arrived, and in no time a small army of men and equipment had a few concrete trucks worth of product poured and finished up to slab grade.

At this point I wanted to have an aerial shot of the property, as well as the adjacent lot that we are considering buying to add to our “back yard”. So we sent up the drone to do the job.

We were led to believe that it might be a few weeks before anything else happened because it would take 7 days for the slab to “cure” to the state where more construction could be done. But, in exactly 7 days a few truckloads of concrete blocks appeared and were distributed across the slab, ready to become the exterior perimeter walls of our hurricane-proof house.

A couple of days later another shipment of materials arrived, the mortar and other parts that are needed to complete the “Going Vertical” milestone. And a few days after that, bingo! We blinked and it was done!

Now that we’re all vertical, we eagerly await the next big milestone: roof trusses and interior framing!

And even Tippy is excited to be Vertical!