Laying concrete blocks...

 ...started in the rain on Mr. B's Birthday, but luckily weather is on our side now and today was lovely, sunny day and great progress was made. The final layer of blocks is to go on tomorrow. Then the base will be filled with sand and drains and pipes and cables will be placed in their right places. Styrofoam will go somewhere there too, inside and outside of the foundations.  

Foundation Base 25th of April

Exciting day on site today...

 ...as the foundation base was laid. We decided to make a little "time capsule" and leave it in the foundation, here Mr B. placing it on the threshold. 11am first load of cement arrived and two hours later 20 m3 had been poured into the foundation. We went back on site later with the kids to write down our names on the nearly too hard cement. Tomorrow will be very busy day as all the timber from around the foundation will have to be pulled out, big load of styrofoam will arrive (at 7am), concrete blocks will have to be moved around, and digger man will reappear to fill out the base with sand. 

Mrs B. is kept busy as well, meeting with a kitchen company tomorrow morning to discuss kitchen, utility room, porch and bathroom furnishing and just received the electrical plans for the house so need to take some time to go through  them. Also getting quotes for windows and doors and will soon need to pick one. And the bills are flying in... 

a whole lot of iron fitting

All the digging work is finished for now, the ground under the house has drainage and various other pipes and cables, and a layer of gravel. Today, and for the next few days Mr. B will be binding about 3 tons of iron together for the foundation base.


I have been doing my bit too, requests for quotations have been sent to get styrofoam & concrete blocks, water supply has been ordered (at grand price of 2767€ just to get connected to the mains water supply, here's one for Ireland how to collect more money...) and waiting to get quotes for windows and doors. 

I have also been sorting out the registration of our cars to the Finnish system and tomorrow my car is going to get new headlights (or something to do with them) as they have to be adjusted to the "wrong" sided traffic here. It needs a few other bits fixed too but once all sorted we can apply for the Finnish registration plates. 

Kids are doing fine, they enjoy the great outdoors, they spend hours and hours outside playing. Noah has adapted brilliantly into the day care, he's in a pre-school group there. Ruben is taking his time to adjust, but it seems to be getting a little easier each day, he's just doing couple of hours a morning and that's enough for him for now.

All going well in the building world

Future Bob The Builder

Ruben celebrates his name day today. In Finland, each calendar day has names dedicated to it and today happens to be Ruben. Mummi baked a nice, traditional cream cake to celebrate! 

Building work started in earnest 14th of April

Building work started in earnest today, digger arrived on site to start ground work & Mr. B is on sledgehammer duty. Grey, rainy day but there's work to be done...

The Barrett House build begins

Ukki's first task was to build a  
shed for coffee breaks and 
storage for tools.

The proud builders :-)

Playground right behind our site, has already
 come in handy.

Measuring the floor level & sketching the  
structure of foundation.

Mr B's first task was to dig up the electrics
 cable and bring it out to where the electrical
 center will be.