Our House is Here!
Well, after all these months, our beautiful little cottage is here! I can't tell you how exciting it is to look out and see it sitting there! We've planned and waited for this moment for so long it feels surreal to see the house on our property.
When we first chose the house, back in June, we were in the house for about 30 minutes, but had seen numerous others as well. Even with our pictures, and a quick trip down in September to Oak Bay to see it again, it still felt like we couldn't quite remember everything. It's wonderful and even better than we remember.
The house arrived Wed night at 3am. They had begun the trip from the barge terminal around midnight and brought it up the Inland hwy to Jubilee Parkway, then down onto the old island hwy where we are. It took them just under 3 hours with Hydro and Telus guys along for the trip to lift and move utility lines. Just after 3 Jim woke me up... "They're here... Kristy, wake up, the house is here!" Jim quickly threw clothes on and went out to meet the guys and show them the plumb line and stakes for the house position. I watched out the window through the rain for a bit, then threw on my bathrobe and walked out to watch. It was an amazing sight. I don't know how they do it.... pitch black out, 5 guys, 3 trucks, a bunch of flashlight and work lights and they slowly backed the house right down into the excavation hole. Then it took them about 2 hours to put up the cribbing (blocks that the house sits on until they come back to lower it onto the foundation) and then they were ready to head out.
If you've been following my blog, you'll know by now that my way of saying thank you is baking.... it's also my way of coping with stress.... so I had 5 pans of cinnamon buns ready 1 for each of the guys. They had been out working in the rain for several hours. It was nice to be able to say thank you.
So now, Jim, the foundation contractor and the structural engineer are all standing under the house in the excavation site checking on the details for the foundation. Hopefully they will be able to start in the next day or so. We were told it would take about a week to build the foundation and 4 foot crawl space. Then we call Nickel Bros and they send their guys back to lower the house onto the new foundation. So that's our next big moment.
In the mean time, Jim built me a ramp up to the back door so I could get into the house safely. (I have RA and my mobility isn't always very good, so he very sweetly made it is first priority to make sure I can get into the house without any trouble.) So I've been cleaning cupboards and walking around the house thinking of what goes where and dreaming of paint colours.... ahhhhh
