Life at the Yockey's

A random selection of pictures from the last 10 days, to give you an idea what life at the Yockey's is like. In one word, chaos. In two, mud everywhere. In pictures, see below!

Late at night, when everyone was finally home from work and practice, we took a picture in front of the High Hoe because it was leaving the next day. Good-bye  High Hoe! (It is a little hard to see behind us, but it is that big yellow thing that looks like it could eat the house).

We've gotten in some of our bricks for the columns and the exterior of the house. They are this type of brick, made with a historic process so they look as authentic as possible. We want our house to really blend into this historic neighborhood.

The Yockey Driveway Obstacle Course. Jonathan and Sarah will challenge anyone who thinks that it isn't hard to get a bike out of this driveway at 5 or 6am, especially when it is raining, to a contest. Winner gets ice cream!

Part two of the driveway obstacle course. Avoid the big holes!

The footers for the porch columns.

The foundation for the main porch in the front. Funny story about the port-a-potty. Yesterday we heard one of the workers talking on his cell phone from inside the port-a-potty. Not quite as private a location as you might think while inside since it does sit between the sidewalk and the street...

Sarah and Jeff pose for an updated picture to send to people they're visiting on a big college tour next week.

We're back in school...

So the blog is a little behind. Here are some catch up photos from Friday when they poured the foundations of our porches. Sometime there will be pictures of the upstairs since the walls are in place, the roof trusses arrive tomorrow!

Measuring out the places for the holes.

The digger at work.

The holes for the front porch.

The hole from above.

Our house as it currently looks. The roof trusses come tomorrow and should be up soon.

Concrete filling in the foundation holes.

Round Two of the Silly Dance Contest

Or rather, the second big beam swings into place! With our open floor plan and no load bearing walls on the first floor, most of the weight of our house falls on two huge beams that span from the front of the house to the back. Yesterday the guys set the second of these beams, this one is the core of the second floor truss system. Check out the pictures and imagine what it was like at our house yesterday.

We couldn't put in the frame for the big living room window until after this beam came through the opening.

The beam is quite long and very heavy.

Watch out camera man, it is coming for you!

Checking to see if it is straight and in the right place.

It took the big High Hoe to lift the beam onto the house.

This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon around here!

Jeff Drives the High Hoe

It was a scary day around here, with Jeff learning to drive the high hoe to help correct a caving wall in the basement hole. Sandy was very nervous, cringing each time the bucket moved or spun around. But, all is well! No tipped machines, no gaping holes in the yard (other than the intended one), no dirt flung to the far corners of the yard. And they got the cave in fixed too! More photos from the day to come later.