Well at 1114AM on the 15th the Lawyer called and advised me we had closed and the property was officially mine. Which meant that promptly my liquid assets just dropped in half. Am really going to have to look for all the sales out there to save a few dollars. For instance this weekend Lowes is having a sale where if you buy a certain amount you get 15% discount. Well since I need "Blu wood" 2by6-8footers for the basement bearing wall. I'll pick them up tomorrow and save some money. I'll also try and get the 12footers I want for the Sill plates and possibly the garage windows as well.

So this morning went down to the lot with Weedeater, Lawnmower, Lopers, and small saw to start clearing the brush along a fence line and start cutting some of the grass and weeds. Here is a picture of the lot at 0800am this morning and the fence line I will clear is on the right hand side of the picture. The fire hydrant is just three feet to the left of my property stake on the West side of the property at this time you are facing south looking into the picture.

Well after about 4hrs of work this is what she looked like. The brush along the old fence line was all gone with the exception of two trees that will most likely come down on Monday. As well I managed to cut about 15ft worth of grass by 150ft. At that time, around 1300pm the rain was starting to come in and out and the trailer was full anyway so called it a day. I'll bring the trailer to the recycling dump on Monday and then fill it up again with another load. All the brush to the left of the truck in the picture above also has to be removed and then we have three rather large cherry trees to cut down. Anyway here is the after picture.

Now prior to my getting the lot one of the things they needed to do was bring water and sewer to the lot line. As you can see in the picture above since there was a fire hydrant, water would not be an issue since it was right there along the road. Now sewer was an other issue. The main sewer trunk needed to be extended at least 100metres and then they had to cut in the laterals to my property and the other half of the property they severed off. Well a week ago they laid the main sewer trunk this caused a few traffic tie-ups due to single lane traffic. However this week they cut in the laterals and when they did that they shut down the road for the day to install one lateral. Since they had to install 2 the road was closed down on two successive days. I heard a few people complain about this. Oh well. Here is a picture showing the lateral being cut in.

At the end of the day all I wanted to see were the two 2by4's coming out of the ground showing where the end of the sewer and water lines were. In the following picture you can see the sewer board (painted green) and the water board (unpainted). If you look carefully about 5ft to the left of the water board is a small orange survey stake showing the eastern edge of my property.

Some of the other things that occurred this week were the decisions on who to use for the basement installation and who would do the framing of the basic house structure. As of now Cotten Construction will install the basement and the garage concrete as well as do the basic grading around the house. One of their first jobs will be to dig out all the stumps from the brush and trees I will be cutting down. Secondly I've decided on using a company called Harder Carpentry to do the framing. This fellow has done numerous SIP panel houses for a local contractor. This means we won't be learning how to install them as we install them. After this will come the roofing company and as of now this will be Dykstra Brothers roofing. A local company that is on it's second generation of family members in the business.

So for me next week it will be clearing land until it is all done.
See you next week for the next instalment.

Harold