Ok! Here we go! Another house update! Two blog posts in one week! All the exclamation points!

Last time I checked in, we had finished our site prep work, the initial stage of the build. Also known as a great big hole in the ground. Our next step was to lay the foundation for the home. 

As a quick side note, David and I designed our floor plan with an architect, who also happens to be my uncle! All relations aside, he is incredibly talented, smart, down to earth and is a well-known residential architect here in Georgia. I can't say enough good things about him. If you are looking for an architect in the Atlanta area, shoot me an email and I am more than happy to send you his contact information. He's got a great set of stock plans and is a dream to work with on a custom plan, I know that from experience! Many of you have asked me how we got started with designing our home from scratch- about five years ago, David and I (for fun, I know, we do cool stuff in our free time, ha) drew out our "dream home" and when it came time to meet with the architect, we pulled that plan out and started from there. We also searched plans on Pinterest and Google (I used phrases and key elements to search like "farmhouse" or "keeping room") to add ideas to our base plan, and of course we took a ton of advice from my uncle, the professional. For weeks... honestly, probably months... we worked on the floor plan, playing with the spaces until we got it just right. At one point (after weeks of work), we scrapped the entire plan and started fresh because things weren't feeling right. I know, my uncle probably wanted to kill us, but we really wanted to get this right! A floor plan is everything! We finally landed on what I'm calling a modern farmhouse style- lots of open, modern spaces mixed with traditional elements like a wraparound front porch combined with a few touches of Craftsman style. For a few reasons I'm sure you understand, I don't plan to share our floor plans here on the blog, but happy to answer any specific layout questions y'all might have.

As the builder started laying the foundation of the house and we saw everything finally starting to shape up, it felt like our hard work on the floor plan paid off. I know this foundation topic can get a little dry (no pun intended... ok, yes it was), but I want to document every step in this process for you guys and, hello, the foundation is the first major step in building our house!

The concrete guys first laid out the concrete footers in the shape of our basement floor plan.

You can also see the metal rebar rods they added before the concrete went in to keep things structurally sound. Yes, please.

Then things got real with the concrete guys! They came in full force and filled the footers with their super cool mixer trucks that pretty much rocked HDawg and Lu's little worlds. Preschooler heaven.

Next, they let the footers dry (about a week or so) and then set up the forms for the basement walls. 

Once they poured the walls, let them set for a week and then pulled the forms off, it was kind of shocking. We had walls! It looks like a house! I mean, kind of. The start to a house, at least.

It was at this point that we had the waterproofing membrane sprayed on the basement walls.

Then it was time for a basement floor. They poured gravel first, flattened it, added a water barrier and then poured the cement over it. 

And just like that, we had a basement floor. This photo makes our house look giant, but don't forget you're looking at the basement, outdoor patios and retaining walls. Lots going on!