Summary with Video Links: 

• Monday Day -1:
  • Some back filling done for the footers
• Tuesday Day 0:
  • Block arrival
  • unloading, and staging day
  • Trailer can’t make it down the driveway
• Wednesday Day 1:
  •  ICF Process begins! Little rainy, 
  • LOTS of mud, 
  • first 3 rows stacked a laid out
• Thursday Day 2:
  •  Scaffold/Brace installation –> it is a lot of work! 
  • Don, Alyssa, & Greg all come to help!! 
  • Greg, Karianne and I keep pounding it out till late in the night. Lots of visible progress.
  •  9 of 11 courses mostly done. (One layer of ICF’s is a “course”)
• Friday Day 3:
  •  Scaffold/Braces raised to the final level. 
  • Rebar lintel building over doors and windows slows us way down. 
  • Lots of hard work but knocked most of it out
• Saturday Day 4:
  • Cut up pop out and roof in the way of the blocks. 
  • Finished the 11 courses of ICFs
  • Garage door lintel built. 
  • Second story burmon ledger brackets installed.
  •  Major beam pockets laid out. 
  • Window and door bucking 90% complete (took me till 1a.m. to almost finish)
  • Vertical rebar installation – HARD . Hold a 17′ stick of rebar on a wobbly scaffold completely vertical and only have your hands on the first 3 feet of the bar. Great core workout
• Sunday Day 5:
  • John came to work and brought a second guy with him
  • Got most of the strapping and bracing done for the windows and doors
  • Switched out the scaffolds on the front of the house that were too short
  • “Ox in the Mire”: John said they needed the progress so I made it a “family day” after church and got the kids to help me lay out and stack the stem walls. (they have wanted to help but the first day was cold and raining and when the weather got good we were too far a long and too high up for them to help, so this was a good part to get them involved.

Summary in Pictures:

Day -1 & 0:

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Day 5:

I have to say how grateful I am for the help we received!  John, my “ICF guy” led me to believe that we’d be able to finish a lot faster. And with that I didn’t even think I needed help. Boy was I WRONG!  There was sooo much to do. We will be ready for pour day tomorrow, but only barely! Biggest shoutout goes to Bret Dunlap.  He has been here all day every day and has been a huge help. Bret is the little brother (but bigger/taller 🙂 ) of Brock Dunlap who was my roommate in college. Bret wants to build an ICF house but hasn’t been able to find anyone that would let him help out (contractors don’t want the liability).  He came out all the way from Colorado and has made a huge difference. Not sure where we’d be without him.

Alyssa, Don, and Greg also made a big impact on our first scaffold day. Greg was awesome and definitely knows how to hustle and get projects done. I think he’s picked up a thing or two in the last couple months 🙂 We all also enjoyed “Greg the sherpa” moving blocks around the site for us. Taber and Rebecca and their family came out and helped Saturday night. Help with meals from Marianne, Alyssa, and Rebecca and all the physical labor help as well made all the difference. We would not have been ready without it. So thanks to all! I am so grateful especially since I didn’t even know how much it was needed. 

I also want to give a shout out to my kiddos.  This has been a long hard week. But they have risen amazingly to the challenge. At some point maybe we can get Karianne to go over our family plan between laundry, meals, and kid watching that we put together so that Karianne can help and be more involved in this project.  Basically the older kids have taken on lots more responsibility and they all did so well this week. It is never easy when mom and dad are not present. I am very proud of how they did this week. Way to go kiddos!!

As far as the ICF process, it has been a lot of fun!  I can’t remember the last time I was this motivated to do anything and the last time I needed so little sleep.  I’ve been waking up at 3a.m. every morning just thinking about the project and what I need to do to keep it going. So many things to figure out. It has been so challenging and so rewarding and so exhausting!  By the end of the day yesterday I could not hold up a skill saw anymore with my dominant hand. My forearm, my core, basically my whole body has been taken to its limit. This computer has made me soft. I am excited to get a little tougher physically this year. Last night I passed out at 8:30 and didn’t get out of bed till 6a.m! I needed that!  It is such a fun process and is fun to see the changes each day. It is awesome to start being able to visualize the space we are creating. 

 I did NOT anticipate the full scope of the work for the ICFs as I’ve previously stated. I also didn’t realize that I’d be working off a rickety 12′ tall scaffold. Those were the two biggest misses I had as far as what I was expecting.  I am very very grateful we decided to pay to have John here to teach us all. There are a lot of things I would have missed and I am really grateful for all he has taught us. He is a lot of fun to have around as well. 

Anyhow, there is still a lot that John and Bret will be working on to finish up today. I’ll be joining them after 4 and will go as long as I need to!

Can’t wait for pour day tomorrow!

Thanks to all!

Mark