FIRST FLOOR!

We have a first floor!
The pour happened on Thursday, but I didn't get to watch it happen.  As it was explained to me, the whole floor was poured starting with the beams.  That concrete was mixed in with the helix fibers to increase the tensile strength of the floor.  While the beams were still wet, they poured the slab, sans helix mix in.  We got a chance to swing by on Sunday, right after a nice rain.

 The front and back porch wasn't poured at the same time.  I think they sill need to put forms on, maybe determine the thickness.  The span isn't as great, so top hats might not be necessary.  Here's a shot standing in the foyer, looking at the rotunda, sitting room, great room and guest bedroom.

 Standing in the foyer looking right, you can see the dining room, mudroom, kitchen, bathroom and butlers pantry.  You can see they built up the elevator shaft a bit for the pour.  That's the interior ICF wall.  They'll need to  remove some where the door is and add the exterior ICF layer for the first floor shaft.

 Standing at the stairwell into the basement.  The door is on the far side, but the stairs up will start near where I'm standing.  I didn't see any HVAC pass through, nor anything for plumbing or electrical.  I guess we'll be cutting those out.

 Standing in the greatroom, looking at the garage.  The view out the back from up here is amazing.

 Standing somewhere near the kitchen looking at the great room.  We'll be removing some of those trees to improve the view to the lake.

 Here's a piece of the helix fiber.  Most of it was inaccessible since it's poured under the slab, but at the front porch, some of the  concrete made it under the form board.

 Front porch.  You can see where the helix mix oozed through.   The rebar grid is in place so that means no top hat here.  The front and back porch will be about 2" lower than the level of the first floor.

Basement elevator shaft.  You can see that the weight of the concrete pushed out the ICF blocking they installed around the beams.  I guess more bracing is required to hold back that weight.  It should be an easy clean up and reinsertion of the ICF.

We heard back from the HOA about our proposed landscaping plans for this year.  They approved the installation of the driveway and associated retaining walls, pool design, and tree removal.  They haven't approved the design of the pool fence.  They said that it would compartmentalize too large a space in our back yard and requested that the fence only surround to pool.  I countered with aerial shot of another house that had their whole back yard enclosed by a fence, and ours is much less intrusive.  I'm hoping that I can appeal to their sense of fairness and logic, but I'm not sure I'll be able to sway their thinking.  After sending the email, I've since found two or three more examples of relatively expansive fenced in areas surrounding pools.  I'll use it as my second wave of rebuttal if they refuse my request.

So the first floor is walkable, but requires 21 days to reach full strength.  In the mean time, the framer will be building the ICF for the first floor and installing all the required rebar.  It's going to be crazy seeing first floor walls!  There's a bit of engineering that needs to be figured out for the second floor beams, at the rotunda.  The basement has the advantage of supporting the whole rotunda floor on a beam that extends to the elevator shaft.  The first floor won't have that since the rotunda is open to the second floor.  I'm interested in seeing how they accomplish this feat.