We finally poured the concrete footings!! Saturday, February 1, 2014

The weather has cursed our ability to pour concrete as even if the days are warm enough, the nights have been too cold and might have caused the concrete to freeze.

Here below you can see the footing trenches we have dug and the massive amount of steel reinforcement bars that we using.

We are preparing to pour the concrete basement walls. We are using
ICF Construction methods and materials here. The basement foundation
walls will be 17 1/4″ thick once we are finished.

Here you can see the forms we are using to create ICF Construction. Much like Lego’s, they click together and form the actual “pockets” where we will pour the concrete.

Here you can see that we are forming the footings to be filled with concrete. The recent weather is hurting our ability to get rid of the water before we pour the concrete.
The extreme cold is not helping much either.

We have finished removing the bad soils and we have removed almost
200 dump truck loads of bad dirt and mucky soils. Now you can see where
we have been bringing in the massive amount of stone that we will
use to build the new engineered pad for the new house to sit on.

Here you will see the first phase of the stone placement has been completed and the engineered building pad is well underway. The house will have a swimming pool in the basement and here you can see that we have built the forms for the pool, and we are getting ready to shoot the concrete “gunite” pool.

The new road has been completed and the lot clearing operation has been completed as well. The excavation process has begun and as you can see this is a very large hole and is quite complicated.

The Project is coming to completion and we are really happy about the quality of the work thus far. In this picture below you can see the beauty of the interior ceiling and beams. This “White Wash” look was designed to compliment the Mahogany windows.

The picture below shows the exterior of the project at the front elevation
and the Hardie Plank Siding. The siding is a pre-painted cementious siding
that will never rot. Notice the siding in between the house and the garage is a
lighter and totally different color than the rest of the house.

The project has started by repairing all of the bad soils on the lot. We discovered during the planning phase that the soil on the lot was bad and had to be replaced at a considerable cost.

Here you see the site being excavated and the entire soils under the house location are being removed to a depth of at least 6 to 8 feet on average. This is called the construction of an “Engineered Pad”.

The project is off to a smashing success, as we are almost done with the new road.
The project requires that we tear our the existing private road that
goes back to the 5 acre lot.

Here you see the equipment at work by clearing the trees from the new road area.
We seem to be “Driveway Kings” these days, as a lot of our projects
seem to have killer driveways.

A custom design that can best be described as
a European type house, with almost 8,000 sq. ft. of space.
This project sits on a wooded 5 acre lot in Bowie, MD
with lots of privacy and custom features.

With 4 large fireplaces, a fantastic kitchen and a huge finished
basement with a large detailed bar. This project has an exercise room fit
for a King, a master suite with all the trimmings, and an outdoor kitchen
that is under roof and ready for guests at any time or season.

The Architect for this project is Mr. Fernando Angulo from the local firm of Le Design.

The start of another great waterfront project. A custom design of
almost 12,000 sq. ft., a waterfront project that sits on the banks of the Potomac River.
With outstanding views of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, this remarkable home is a Mediterranean style home with many amazing features.

Another one of a kind Custom Home with high ceilings, dual staircases in the Foyer, Geothermal heating and cooling, and a large swimming pool in the basement.
This special project also features ICF (concrete) construction and will be
one of the largest concrete houses built in this region.

The Architect for this project is Mr. Nate West
with West Architectural Designs, located here in the Washington, D.C. area.