The hugh crane got here 7am and against Dougs, advice drove to the front of the lot and buried the front wheels. Luckily Larry left the keys in the dozer and there was someone on site who knew how to drive it and pulled the crane out.
There was one hugh trailer used just to transport the counter weights for the crane. that alone took an hour to transfer. (I have a pic but this blog stuff stinks and I'm tired of trying to load them.)

Here they're swinging the 2nd half of the house onto the foundation, all 16'x 60' of house! The crane operator said one half weighed 25,000 lbs!

We couldn't believe how they manipulate the boxes onto the foundation, just push it right in place, well maybe not that simple but it was slick!

Here's the cross section of the kitchen. Isn't it beautiful?! Our daughter Karen designed the house and we couldn't be more happy. The morning sun will stream in through the french doors. That is a hugh island in the center sized just for me. (the posts in the center will be removed)

After 10 long hours of work - between the crane operator, trailer drivers, escorts, contractors, QC guys, marketing guy taking a video and a host of others who stopped by, we had a yard full. They had a hard working crew there, never even took a lunch break. So end of the first day it was all assembled and then covered with tarps. (how lucky we were to have beautiful weather after the past 6 weeks of rain!)

I just couldn't believe we finally will have a home that I can move around in without bumping into everything.

Here we are the end of day 2. What a difference!! The roof is almost complete. I still haven't been inside though. Although they can build a ramp, there are all kinds of materials on the floor inside. Tomorrow for sure! This is the backside, I have to say, this is my first time viewing the back, I didn't know Doug had taken this picture. It's beautiful and brought a tear to my eye.

12 It's finally here!

There were, I think, 7 roof sections. You can see 3 of them here. They said it took 9 trailers to move the house onto the lot here. We tied up traffic pretty good this morning, right during rush hour. Well as much as we have rush hour in Claremont!

Here is the bedroom swinging over the house to be set in the back left corner. It's amazing how the crane operator can navigate that to the inch - all by computer.

Cellar Foundation

Ok, I fianally remembered to take a picture but I can't get it all in the pic. there is more on the right and an ell off the front left. The hole on the right is for the elevator. Enough of that, now I got the real thing next!

10. Tree trimming

You, know the cellar hole is finally complete and again I can't find a picture of it so I'll have to back track into the cellar stuff. In the mean time, on Tues we went to Boston for a Dr's appt. so Larry said he'd cut the big pine next to the house while we were gone. I did not want to be there when he did it, although in hindsight since there were no problems, I wish I had seen it go down. This was one huge pine and it was only feet away from the house. The branches formed an umbrella all the way over the deck and ramp protecting us from rain and snow. Of course it did drop a ton of pine needles too. I just hope the birds find a new place to lite. The 2 trees to the left of it went down too as well as some dead birches behind.

Good news, he didn't even have to flatten the transplanted blueberry bushes. Doug picked some berries this weekend and I made the best muffins I've ever had. The secret ingredient is sour cream. Ask me for the recipe.

Weds it poured most of the day. Spent more time pumping out the cellar hole and trying to keep dry then anything else.

Thursday we were gone again and Larry started

digging out the massive stump. He really knows how to run that excavator!!

You can see how he teased the roots away from the cable with our electric lines. That's my herb garden to the left that is still intact too.