New Build: Grading The Land

Hello and welcome to the blog! Today I am continuing on with our new build. Today it’s all about grading!! Well actually before you start to grade, you need to get soil testing done, topo survey, stake the pad and get permits! So it’s not a quick process. Plus the permits are time consuming and expensive! It took us about a year to get the permits to start grading. Check out last weeks Youtube video about permits. Talk about moving slow! But eventually we got the go ahead and got signed off. The thing, or person that held us up the most, was the engineer. He was and is awful to say the least! So he has been our biggest issue with the whole build. If you ever build a home, get a good engineer! I actually told Adam to fire him right when I met him. I knew he was no good. Then I proceeded to tell him to fire him every. day after lol! But Adam would not listen and he has cost us so much time and money. So again, make sure you get a good engineer! And hire a local architect. Check out the YouTube video that shows more of the grading.

Ok back to grading. Here’s another look at the land before the grading. It had a pretty decent hill. It may not look like it in pictures, but it was a trek to get to the top of the peak you see here. Thankfully we didn’t have any large boulders and we didn’t need to import or export dirt. That helps keep your cost down.

Here we are on day one of grading. A week prior to grading they actually had sprinklers on the land watering it. This was to help soften the dirt and hopefully help the grading go faster. They started with the driveway area first so that they could get their cars and tractors on the land.

The size of the machines was crazy! They are huge! They just drive them around and around in circles, slowly leveling out the dirt. I honestly don’t know who would want this job, it seemed so boring to me! But everyday we would check in and see the progress. They were bringing those hills down and spreading out the dirt.

The kids loved seeing all the tractors and it was fun to see the progress day by day. All in all it only took 24 days to grade the lot. Not bad really, seeing as they had so much dirt to move around. We started the grading November 30, 2022 and ended December 23, 2022. The person who did the grading actually lives in the same neighborhood as our new home. So it was a short commute for him!

Here she is! We ended up with close to an acre lot! Not a bad size actually. It really did blow my mind how they were able to flatten out all those hills and make it one big flat surface. We were so excited to have the grading done, little did we know it would still be another two years before we started building!

Look how little Violet and Scarlett were when we bought the land! So crazy! That’s my niece Jolie in the middle. It’s been quite a journey just to get this point, and we’re just getting started! One thing I have learned so far with building, is to have patience! Not a strong suit of mine, but this journey has actually helped me better my patience. You know the saying God laughs while we make plans, well that’s absolutely true! I just keep telling myself that everything happens when it should. God’s timing is always perfect. Can’t wait to share more of our building journey!! Next, we will be starting the foundation. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a post, and check out our Youtube video sharing more of the grading process.