Stage 2: The Driveway and Foundation (Month 2)

After a week of roughing out the driveway, the Hopewell construction crew worked on building a series of retaining walls that are needed to make the driveway "drivable".  The following pictures and video show the construction of the retaining walls.

When our neighbors walk by...they refer to our driveway as a "work of art"...and it is...just watch!

To build the retaining walls for the driveway, Jon's crew used forms made out of wood and they eventually filled each form with cement.  Here are two of Jon's crew digging a trench for the first, and longest retaining wall. This picture is taken from the road at the bottom of the driveway.

Here is one side of the form for the first retaining wall up in place.  Note: when finished, our driveway will be at the level of the retaining wall!

Here you can see the Bobcat delivering the cement to fill up the first retaining wall (the driveway is so steep that a cement truck can't drive up it...especially on just dirt!  Notice the metal inside the wooden form...this is to add strength to the wall.  

Note:  When the guys were building the retaining walls, several bald eagles sat in trees above and dropped dead fish carcasses on them as a sort of protest to Man invading their space. 

Finally!  The first retaining wall is complete.  Jon and his crew had to deal with a lot of rain in June, which is why it took such a long time to get the driveway done.  Now, they will take the plywood forms off the first retaining wall and use them for the next two!

Starting to "form out" the second retaining wall

Finally, with the driveway "done" its time to dig out the basement of the house.  I am taking this picture from the North side of the property.  Toward the other end (where the big excavator is) is where the garage will be.  Keep in mind, that because we are coming up a BIG HILL, the garage is on the basement level...

After the foundation was dug out, the "footer" for the cinderblock foundation was poured... all of this cement had to be driven up from the bottom of the driveway with a Bobcat!

Here you can see the "completed" driveway (roughed in with stone).... Jon and his crew did a great job!  We just hope we can get up and down in the snow!

The picture above the the two below (and the video) are of the masonry company that built the foundation of our house.  From start to finish, they did the job in under a week!