Backfill and PEX for radiant heat

Oh my gosh! This is fun. Not only is the PEX laid out on the floor (who but us would be excited about plastic tubes snaked around on the floor?), but we can walk up to the house now.

We visited the farm last night because today the flat work is scheduled to be done. FYI: a little thunder shower is moving through the area this morning, so that is probably not really going to happen today. In any case, the work that needed to happen before the slabs are poured is done and it looks pretty awesome.

Here are some photos. They are in roughly the same order as always: starting from the parking area on the West side and moving around to the South, then East and North.

View from parking area.
Yep! The foundation is now covered with dirt - just like it should be.
And the maple tree is still there - the bulldozer managed to avoid it!

Close up of front door. Now you can really see the termite shield that caps the insulation and foundation walls.

This is another view of the West side south of the entry. Rock retaining walls will
roughly follow the stair steps in the foundation.

Close-up of the floor in the sun-space on the South face of the house. This area has extra rebar and lots of PEX.

View of Southeast corner.

Close-up of PEX layout - see the tubes for controlling the zones coming up in the far corner?
That's the mechanical room.

View from the East. The tallest retaining walls will be on this side.
Our builders, Rick and Dave Robson, are standing with me in the summer kitchen area.

Here's a close-up, looking East to West, that shows the drains in the garage floor.
What's so cool, though, is now we can see what our view will be from our front door…that's the pond on the property across the street to the West.  It's just the way we imagined it would look :-) 

This is the North side of the house. The 8' door for the summer kitchen  is where Rick (in the red) and I are standing. Dave is standing in the garage.

What follows are three pictures of the lower level floor. They show the arrangement of the PEX in the floor and also have orange lines that roughly represent where walls will be built to define the rooms.

Two bedrooms on the East end of the lower level.

Central common area, bathroom, and entry from the sun-space.

West bedroom and mechanical room.

 And we are about as excited as we can be, watching all that we've been dreaming and planning becoming a reality right before our eyes...

Two happy critters!
(we lovingly call ourselves the giraffe and the squirrel, although I'm a relatively large squirrel)

Standing at the entrance - where we will begin the next exciting chapter of our life. Wow :-)