Hey MAVBro...
In order to not hijack that thread in the "Moto" forum, I elected to start one here. You asked;
"Really? That's really fast. That's just over 2 months away. Better keep an eye on things to make sure they don't cut corners. I don't think I've ever seen a house get built that fast except on that Extreme Home Makeover show.
Is it normal for houses to go up that quick where you're from? You'd never see that around here except maybe if it was a pre-fab home."
Actually, they have been working it for about six weeks. I'm probably exercising "Wishful thinking" in saying, "January," but the fact is I've hired a really good custom house builder in a rural area that is not currently seeing a lot business. He told me back before it was started that it would probably take about four months to build.
This is not a large house. It's just over 1600 square feet of living space with a "smallish" front porch and large back porch. Both the front and back porches are "under roof" and considered in the square foot count, so the entire house, including the garage, is 2500 square feet "covered."
I have total faith in my contractor. He's a good dude, and should try out for "Most Interesting Man in The World." This guy was born and raised here in South Georgia. When he's not building something, he's hunting deer, quail, dove or gators - or fishing on his lake. About 2 months ago he was bit by a water moccasin. He strangled it and drove to Jacksonville to get treatment.
About 3 months ago he flew down to Argentina and went on a dove hunt and killed hundreds of dove. All were consumed by locals. I saw a picture on his facebook and there must have been a thousand doves in the pile. I gather dove are plentiful in Argentina.
All that to say that he has been completely honest through the whole process. I totally lucked out finding this guy, and I am certain I have made a valuable friend for life. He lives in the area and has volunteered his own property for storage of anything I might need to put away while our house is being built - such as the tractor I'm in the market for. He's also volunteered all the gator and venison I want - meat I dearly love to consume.
Here's a few pictures to whet your appetite. The foundation is absolutely rock-solid. The footers are over a foot deep and reinforced with rebar - topped with poured concrete. On that is at least 24 inches of concrete block. As my contractor said, "If something comes along that will move this foundation, you would not want to be here nohow."
Here's what the footers looked like prior to what you see above...
