House is starting to take shape

The building is starting to come out of the ground, and it looks pretty good. I'll post the drawings on here soon so that those of you that are following along the build can compare the pictures to what it will ultimately look like.

Shot from the back of the lot. The partial wall on the far right is the rear wall of the lot. The pool will eventually go in that corner. The wall on the side shows where the end of the structure will be.

This is a view from the lot beside, where there will eventually be another house. The 'notch' in the building is on both sides. It allows for natural light and air, as well as light duty services to be run up and down the building.

So this is all standard castillo (castle) style construction. The fields of brick are laid first. After the walls are complete, the castillos where the rebar is sticking up (structural vertical concrete pillars) are poured, in preparation for steel beams on the perimeter and for the boveda ceiling. What that might look like at the end is like this:

example of a traditional boveda ceiling

View from the front sidewalk. The area in front will be golf cart/bicycle parking on this side. The black strip is part of the weatherproofing regimen. Sewer services to the street will run in here. The middle is the main entrance, which is inset another 2m or so.

Another view from the front. the far right corner is where the stairwell to the second floor will be. at the house, you can see that they're to the bottom of the window for bedroom #1

Another view of the front. The castillo construction is in evidence here.

miscellaneous pics

A few pics have wandered in to me from the first part of the build, so I thought I'd just make a new post for them. Thanks Steve!

The lot, just after clearing. Building materials for the foundation are being stockpiled near the back.

Excavation for the footings is underway

Ross and builder Jésus discuss pillar placement. A whole lot of steel goes into the footings in order to make the building meet new earthquake standards

Castillos and foundation are taking shape

the floor will be on top of this foundation. This gives a pretty good idea of the size of the house itself.

This is the foundation of the outdoor living area, which will have another kitchen up against the wall side.

A twisted pic that shows the complete foundation for the building and outdoor living area

the outside wall continues out to the parking area

Ross relaxing after a hard day on the construction site

Foundation

Ok, so the footings are poured, now it's time for the foundation to take shape!

Workers getting the rebar in place for the castillos (castles, or columns). It's a lot of steel!

More rebar placement in anticipation of the columns going up

The entire lot, viewed from the back (NE) corner

more piles of construction materials as the foundation takes shape

Ross helps a worker figure out how the slope to the front door is going to work

Angel's camp. Angel stays on site 24/7 to make sure that nobody makes off with any of our construction materials.

Forms and other materials piled on the east wall near Angel's camp

Cement pour of footings

Well, we're a week and bit in, site prep is complete, and the footers are starting to get prepped. We were hoping to make use of the footer beneath the west wall, but that's not the case.

We're constructing to be beyond what is required for the area, because there is some risk of earthquake. We want our house to be very earthquake resistant.

Pouring of the footer begins. We've gone with an upgraded footer that is a metre wide in order to provide as much strength as possible in the event of an earthquake. This will be a building designed to last.

Rebar being positioned for the next step. The entire area has been taken down to 1m below grade for the upgraded footer

A wide view of the entire house area taken down to 1m below grade. Setup for the next step continues

Wall removal March 2

So the wall between us and the property to the west needs to come down. The removal is complicated by the fact that they had built tight against it a couple years back. Ah, the joys of the zero setback. Anyways, with some careful work it is easily removed.

Carefully removing the wall reveals the structural wall of the building on the other side

A little persuasion is required to get the wall down

Workers hiding in the only shade on the property at midday while they prep for foundation pours

Prep of the footer at the back of the house. This is where the wall will continue from, so needs to be undermined in order to pour a new footer

And one last wide shot of the excavation in progress

Foundation start

More progress! Tuesday was the start of foundation preparations. Trenches for the footings were dug.  Examination of the boundary wall footing was done in order to see what can be saved, and what needs to be rebuilt under the house.

Our builder Jésus takes a look at the foundation trenches and the foundation material left behind from the previous building

One of the first challenges is determining if the foundation beneath the perimeter wall is suitable for constructing with, or whether it will need to be torn down in order to beef up the footings.

Excavation and examination of the footer beneath the west side wall

More excavation and examination. Since the wall is being undermined, a new footer will need to be constructed.

Yet more digging in order to determine the depth and width of the footer

And yet more digging.  I've never been so excited to see a hole in the ground.