Mini Cordwood Build: Clearing for the Foundation

Kid Friendly
4

We don’t have any flat spots anywhere on our land to build a house.  This spot we chose is the closet thing to flat in this general area.  While we want to use the slope of the land to our benefit, the spot for the house does need to be flat.

 

The project gets out to a slow start, due to the ragged, rocky terrain that is full of large roots and tree stumps.

The Man gets a flat spot started where he can better move the excavator around and then things really start moving along.  The kids are having a blast watching the excavator and seeing the progress being made.  Once they found out that Daddy could listen to music while he was working, they had to give it a go.  They wanted to ride in the excavator anyway, but once they heard there was music, it was all over.

 

Rocks are everywhere.  Lucky for us, we need these rocks to build the base of the house.  In order to keep the cordwood dry, the bottom two feet of the house will be built of stone.  We likely have enough stone to build the whole house and still have plenty for me to buid some raised garden beds.  We will also be using the smaller, flatter rocks for tiles inside and patio tiles outside.  Even though it may be a hassel to get all of the rocks out of the flat spot for the house, it saves us a ton of time to have so many building materials right at the house site.  We just have some sorting to do.

 

More digging and moving…

We ended up shifting the house slightly and I had to dismantle one of my garden beds.  Luckily, I was able to save the squash plants and move them to a new location.

More rocks…

More flat…

A few trees down. ..

Done!

The Mini Cordwood House Page

Here are some links for squaring the land:

Home Building Mentor

How to Build A House

Create and Make

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Hi Sarah,

I’ve been following along for a while now…Thank you for documenting all this!!

I don’t comment much and have more questions of…”why?”…this or that…is being done then perhaps helpful guidance most often…and since you present with more a “this is what we’re doing” than any direct questions…I just read and wonder…

I love the motivation and “big picture” direction you and your family are tying to go!!!

Good luck…and I’ll keep following…

j

I am glad you are enjoying. I haven’t posted much lately, hitting many snags at the moment, but we should be back on track soon!

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