We had a great wind storm, much stronger than I thought! It actually blew the plastic that I had draped over the cut slopes all the way up and over the top fence!
In the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas we finished the Amdeck floor forms for the living-room and foyer, and started lay in the steel reinforcement. And there is a LOT of it!
At the front of the livingroom, there is a very strong reinforced beam. This beam spans the width of the garage below, and supports the 2 story high front wall of the house. Also visible is the AmDeck floor forms and the steel joists that support it.
Just before the Christmas Break, the majority of the forming was done, and most of the steel was placed. I was finally able to make a list of things to do on one page!
This view shows the Living-room floor which is partially on grade and partially suspended on the AmDeck. The round foyer is also visible in the center of the picture.
From the top of the cut, the entire building site is visible, as well as my stockpile of ICFs waiting to be used!
After Christmas Break, it was back to the forming details! A full week of working on the items on my to-do list, and it wasn't getting much shorter! Many of the items were for complex forming connections that needed to be figured out, and that took a lot of time. Just before the New Years holiday, I had the Structural Observation inspection of the steel reinforcement. There was a lot to look at, and I passed! That was a nice way to end 2007!
It was a short week to start 2008. The first 2 days were spent whittling down my to-do list, it is getting shorter!
At the end on this week we were threatened with a triple rain storm, the worst since 2005.
I fixed the plastic I had hung earlier, and added another 200 square feet, mostly covering the lower cuts and some of the forms.
It's a bit surreal now with my white foam house rising up from a black plastic hole in the ground!
The storm hit as expected, but not quite as strong as they were warning. It started raining Friday and has rained every night this weekend, but as of Sunday afternoon, everything looks OK. I went up and sump pumped the trenches during a break in the rain, and other than some of the plastic tearing where water had gathered into puddles, and a lot of mud backing up behind my sandbag dams, I think we will come through the storm pretty well. Now I just need to dry it out, and do the final touches and get my city inspection so I can POUR!
Now that I have a nice level slab, laying out the walls was pretty easy. First, I drew chalk lines where the walls should be, then screwed steel channel down to the slab. The ICFs fit into the channel, keeping the wall straight and preventing the ICFs from moving around. After the first course of blocks were set, the rest went up pretty easily. After each course of ICF, rebar is laid in the webs then the next course is installed, and so on. 
As the walls were going up, I started building the shoring that would brace the walls and support the next floor above. 
By the end of the 4th day, the walls were 8 feet high, and the openings for the french doors, small window, and the fireplace were created. I'm having to wait for another rain storm to pass, so I'm taking the opportunity to order the steel posts and joists for the upper floors. Hopefully, the walls will be done by the end of the week, weather permitting!
On Tuesday the majority of the AmDeck forms were delivered. It took 3 trucks to bring them here, and they completely filled the garages! There are still almost 200 blocks to bring, but I asked the company to hold them for a bit so I could make some room!
