Foundations determine the strength and endurance of a thing. That goes for families, careers, relationships…and houses. Tomorrow, we pour the cement foundation for “The Cabin at Many Moons.” Yikes. Why “yikes?” Because it’s so…permanent. You get one shot. For do-it-yourself folks like us, that’s a bit scary. Jeff is confident, which gives me confidence. But, still. There are risks with this foundation. It not only needs to anchor the house but also heat and beautify it. (I’ll explain that last one in the next post.)
Before “the big pour,” though, comes the complex work to prepare everything that will soon be invisible underneath, plus two more inspections. See photos and captions below.
I put this photo first, of loons coming close to shore, to remind me of the reason for this cabin….to join nature-immersion with modern conveniences. A big project like this can consume you. I don’t want to forget to look, listen and breathe.
Jeff rented this compactor to tightly pack the sand that lies under the foundation. We brought in about 25 loads of sand, at least two feet deep, to create this building site.
Jeff’s son Josh helped lay the white styrofoam on top of the sand, for insulation.
Jeff and Josh use a table saw to cut the pink styrofoam pieces which created the frame for the 12″x16″ footing. The footing distributes the weight of the building evenly across the entire structure so that it doesn’t sink into the ground.
Whoever created this pink styrofoam had the urge to add cartoon characters. 🙂 Concrete will be poured into these “molds” tomorrow morning to create a strong base for the house.
This foundation incorporates a heating system. Hot water will flow through this orange tubing, which we placed into the gaps in the white styrofoam. It took hours. Maneuvering 1,200 feet of stiff tubing that was bound into a tight coil was pretty difficult at first!
Ah, done. Tubing in place, weighted down by heavy mesh screens.
See the garden snake? It got caught in the footing. We couldn’t figure out how to help him get out. He eventually disappeared, and I’ll always wonder if a snake lives under us!
While laying the tubing which will be covered by concrete, you have to make sure the ends come up in the right place. Jeff spent a lot of time this past week scratching his chin to foresee (and then execute) these needs and came up with a sort of junction box.
The mechanical inspector popped in to give us his green light to proceed. He’ll be back, in subsequent stages.
It looks confusing to me, but I’m impressed again with Jeff’s know-how. These tubes will eventually feed heated water into various parts of the house.
Meanwhile, after my visit to a specialty company to discuss colors, this load of concrete coloring was delivered to the concrete-mixing company to put into our concrete. More on that to come!
If a foundation is essential to a home, so is a septic system. We created the septic field, and put in this septic tank, more than two years ago. It will soon be connected to a house!
I’m learning the somewhat circular process of permit-and-inspection. You can’t start without a permit, and you can’t proceed without inspections at various phases. The building permit is the first, but there are three others (electrical, plumbing, mechanical). My on-call general contractor got the building permit for us, and I did the other three.
The building inspector stopped in this morning to pronounce us “good-to-go” for the next phase. This was inspection #3 of what will be at least six inspections before we’re done. And each inspection “costs”….so the permit-and-inspection cycle is part of my budget.
Meanwhile, beautifying the waterfront is my focus when Jeff doesn’t need me at the building site…here, re-staining the dock.
In keeping with my goal to remember why I’m here, I try to get out on the water every day…
…and notice nature’s bounty, such as this Lady Slipper near our property line.
Meanwhile, Boo seems oblivious to the increased activity, making her daily outings as usual. I worry about ticks and fleas, and hope the treatment I gave her works. So far, so good!
I cannot believe this is a DIY project. The detail and quality is beyond what I have seen in professional work. We had a heated cement floor in the apartment we leased in Seoul, South Korea. I loved it. The floor was warm enough to wear slipper socks throughout the frigid winter.
Great to see this post! Very well done as always. It’s fun to follow your progress and I can so relate to this after we have been through several building projects. But nothing is more exciting than to see and hear that huge truck thunder in and dump yards and yards of concrete over what you hope and pray you have done correctly!!
For Many Moons 
Mary, it’s so exciting to witness step of the way with your commentary and photos. I almost feel like I’m there. What a huge undertaking!
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I cannot believe this is a DIY project. The detail and quality is beyond what I have seen in professional work. We had a heated cement floor in the apartment we leased in Seoul, South Korea. I loved it. The floor was warm enough to wear slipper socks throughout the frigid winter.
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Great to see this post! Very well done as always. It’s fun to follow your progress and I can so relate to this after we have been through several building projects. But nothing is more exciting than to see and hear that huge truck thunder in and dump yards and yards of concrete over what you hope and pray you have done correctly!!
I’ll look forward to the next post and pictures.
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The pour this morning was indeed exciting. With some surprises of course. Bog post to come!
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