Finally setting it down!

The house drops (house mover lingo for setting the house down on the completed foundation) on Monday!  In the meantime, Dwain and Butch and various other friends have been busily working on the final details that will allow the house to be attached to the foundation.  I was out there the other night and helped them with the sill plate (boards and foam barrier that goes between the house and foundation).  There is more to do today and tomorrow to get ready so they will be at it again!  Stop by and say hi if you're in the area.  It's truly amazing how many people have stopped to see how we're doing and wish us well :)

Moving Day!

I know I haven't been forthcoming with updates about the house move.  It was pretty stressful and I just needed to set it aside for a bit.  Moving day was a little over a month ago, May 29, 2013!  Here's my take on the day:

We got up early and out to the site by 7:30 a.m. and found the moving crew already hard at work!  Actually, it was POURING down rain, and they were all standing UNDER the house, drinking coffee and some, having a smoke!  When I wandered up and asked why they were standing UNDER the house, I got a collective "Are you kidding?" look and an answer...."'Cause it's dry under here!"  Of course, I was standing in the pouring rain when I asked this silly question!

I heard a snicker behind me at my comment, and a woman wearing an Emmert (the house moving company) jacket introduced herself as Nicole, from Accounting.  She explained to me that everyone in the office got to go out to a move, and today was her turn!  Then she asked me if I wanted my picture taken in her bunny-eared hard hat!  I took her up on the offer, of course, even though it didn't really go with my outfit!  

In the meantime, the Comcast and PUD crews had arrived and were starting the process of taking there lines down so the neighbors would be annoyed with us and so the house could move down the road, unobstructed.  

Our youngest daughter, Brynn Lovingfoss and son Myles had also arrived to watch the spectacle. Grandpa Dwain provided a hardhat for the little guy to wear while he supervised the move :)

FINALLY, the lines were down and the harebrained scheme inched slowly out of the driveway, headed toward its new home!  Those first few feet were nail biters---I could hardly believe what I was seeing!

Out of the driveway and turned onto Hazel Dell Road:

First obstacle was a little one--a sign needed to be temporarily removed.

And moving down the road, once more....

But not for long!  Seems that the house was just a hair too wide to fit between the pole (one that couldn't be moved, according to the utility crews) and a tree that leaned WAY over from the hillside.  Nicole had to talk me down a bit at this point!  It took them a while to get it figured out.  They moved around the dollies under the house and leaned it up a bit and FINALLY scooted by with just inches to spare!  Don't get me wrong, it took a while.  Since Hazel Dell Road was closed and there were a few cars waiting, we were sweating it a bit.  I imagined having to abandon it in the middle of the road, or even putting it back!  

Almost....

And by a whisker!!! You can see how tilted the house was in this picture.  I was imagining it sliding off the beams, and into the ditch!

Past the obstacles (or so we thought) and ready to turn off Hazel Dell Road and block traffic on Leckler Creek Road for a while!

Turning onto Leckler Creek Road.

And finally, traffic is freed up on Hazel Dell and the utility crews set about putting the power and cable lines back in place.  They just jacked the dollies up a bit to go over the mailboxes on the right.

Getting ready to come over the Leckler Creek bridge.

Then, they actually let it sit on the bridge a bit while they unhooked the truck and repositioned it behind the house.  Then they hooked up a backhoe for the turn into our driveway. I think I will have this photo enlarged and made into a canvas to hang in our entry way when this is all said and done!

What you can't see here is the truck, attached by cable to the other side of the house.  It acted as the "brakes" while they made this tight turn and headed down a slight incline onto our property.

OOPS!  The front fascia board on the garage bumped into a BIG knot on that tree on the right.  Again, the house wasn't going any further without the ingenious intervention of the Emmert crew. 

The freshly cleared ground on the left was clay mud muck and they didn't want to head down that way if they could avoid it, SOOOO, I think they bent a few safety rules here.  This guy (and a big ol' chainsaw) got a ride to the rooftop via the bucket of the backhoe.  

Before we knew it, the knot on the tree was gone and it was smooth sailing again! (See the sawdust on the roof?)  

Back of the house from the new site...they wanted me over there to make sure it was placed where I wanted it.  There are a lot of things you can change easily....location is NOT one of them!

The muck we were contending with.

Now ready to turn it around and set into place.

Finally there!

Finally in place after a long, stressful and wet day!  Things were settling down, the crew was unhooking equipment and getting ready to wrap up.  Dwain had to run into town to attend to paychecks for OUR employees, and who drives up, but the building inspector!  I saw the county car and thought it might be someone from Public Works just checking in to see if we had done the deed, but NOPE....Guy gets out and asks me if we have a building permit.  I look at him with my best dumb blonde look and say, "We're not building anything, we just moved it."  Apparently, he thought I was being a smart ass (Yeah, I know, but I really WASN'T this time!).  He was back the next day and slapped a stop work order on the house.  Apparently, Building and Planning don't have a lot of experience with house moving.  We got a letter that said we moved a mobile home without a permit and if we continued work on it the fine could be up to $2000 a day!  So, it took a couple of weeks to get the permit thing straightened out before we could proceed with pouring the foundation.  We poured the foundation on June 14 (Shout out to Dave Brown and crew from North County Concrete! Thanks guys!!) and will be "dropping" the house on July 15. 

 Hopefully, we'll have a little better weather than we did on move day, so we're planning on a little BBQ.  Nothing fancy.  Come on out and see, we'd love to see you!! Also, there may be a video in the works.  Due to a number of things, my video wasn't the greatest, so I have someone who is a master of all things video working on it.  Can't make any promises, 'cause he only had so much to work with, but I hope to get some video on this site before long.  

This is the wonderful crew from Emmert International that made moving a 2500 square foot house look easy!  They worked hard for several days prepping the house for the move, and in really nasty conditions the day of the move!  Thank you, guys!  You are the greatest and real professionals.  Your worked awed me! I still think your work is reality show worthy!

All dressed up and no place to go!

It seems as if we have been gearing up for this move for such a long time!  Yesterday (the original move date) came and went with a little bit of frustration.  This all should have been over by now!  Delaying the move made me nervous, but we do have just a little leeway---according to our contract with the county, the house MUST be moved by June 2.  There have been no crews at either site since Friday (a well deserved long weekend for most!) and it seems as if it has come to a standstill.  But it has not!  The house is ready to go--all we have to do is to get in there and move it!  Less than 48 hours until the scheduled move at about 9 a.m. Wednesday  morning.  The silver lining of the delay is the rather decent hour--the original move was scheduled for 7 a.m.  For now, we're all dressed up with no place to go.....

And so it goes.....

Went out today to show the crews my appreciation by bringing them a hot lunch.  Made a big ol' crockpot full of chili and a pineapple upside down cake.  Threw in some chips and sodas and made these working men very happy!  And, I don't get to entertain out in the shop very often!

These fellas were taking a minute to look at the house site before they get back to work.

I did find another little (!!) problem while I was there--the house site was about 20 feet to the right of where I had told the HH it should be and the angle was not quite right.  Guess the equipment operators will be back again---I'm a job creator, LOL!!!

Over at the house site, it looks like most of the beams are set under the house--

And out on Hazel Dell Road, the power and cable line work was getting done--

And the "Money Pit" (formerly know as the Harebrained Scheme)  is just about ready to "Move on down the road!"  

Just a little delay

No deed goes unpunished.  After being assured and reassured by the PUD that there would be "no charge" to lift the lines we needed lifted in order to move the house, we now find that we have to pay a substantial amount for this service.  Our originally planned move date, May 26, falls on a holiday weekend and would cost a WHOLE lot more due to having to pay overtime.  Comcast feels the same way and wants to charge about double for doing the work on a Sunday.  So.....the house move has been rescheduled to the early morning of Wednesday, May 29.  County has been notified, a new road closure announcement will be going out, the moving company is actually happy because THEIR crew will also not have to work on Sunday.  The only ones unhappy would be us.  But C'est la vie....

Work is continuing at both sites.  Steel beams had arrived at the house site yesterday when I was out there in the afternoon, and the new site is looking better all the time.  Wish we could take out all the trees that are behind the site, 'cause this city girl doesn't like the scary woods or the shade they will cause on the (eventual) gardens or in the house, but HH tells me that is a project for another day.  Right now we are just doing what we need to do to get this darn house moved.

I've stopped asking "How much is THAT going to cost?" because it just freaks me out every time.  Better to just do what we need to do and  worry about that at the end of it all.  It's not like we're in a good place for negotiation and we ARE kind of in the middle of it now, with no backing out!!  

Getting ready to roll!

The house moving company has been working diligently since Tuesday.  They took out the concrete garage floor and dug down about 5 feet!  It looks like a bomb went off in there!

Lots is going on at the building site, also.  The top of our driveway needed to be a little wider.

And, a few trees needed to be cleared out.

They were still working when I left for the day (had to do a little grocery shopping--the cupboards were bare!). Things at both sites shaping up nicely!!

Getting permits, moving overhead lines, prepping the site, checking the well water, getting foundation drawings approved...WOW, my HH is SUPERMAN!!!  Well, without the tights...and the cape and the flying thing, but, you know ;)  When the house moves on Sunday, we will have had possession of it for only 12 days!  And would you believe that we're still running a business, a household, and going on with our various volunteer and community activities?  Nope, I wouldn't believe it either if I weren't right smack in the middle of it myself!

And so the craziness begins....

Wrote checks to the county for the house, contacted the mover to let them know we have it for sure and can move forward.  Had to get insurance certificates from the mover for the county.  Contacted the PUD about moving power lines the day of the move.  Went to Building and Planning to make sure we had the permit they had originally told us we needed.  Uh-oh.....there was some mis-communication somewhere and it turns out that we need to have our well checked out, have septic drawings made and apply for the septic permits before we can move the house!  Yikes.  Oh, and we also need to have drawings for the foundation.  All in the next week.  Luckily HH is a creative, out-of-the box kind of guy.  He said that the foundation for the house had already been built once--perhaps we could get those drawings to use!  No use reinventing the wheel, huh? A few phone calls later and a LOT of help from a nice lady named Ruth at the original builder's office and we had our plan.

Today our son-in-law was out there removing the fence so that the movers will have good access to remove the house.  As a bonus, he is in the process of building a play structure for the grand kids and the fencing will be put to good use.  I was able to get into the house (not such a simple task--it had been broken into while empty and getting in requires removing a piece of plywood that is currently securing the front door) and show my daughter around.  Also took a few pictures of the kitchen, which we will be totally remodeling, and took some measurements.  They have the deck most of the way off and we are in high gear getting things ready.  The house moving company will be here on Tuesday.  We have a lot to do before then.