House addition... part 1... earth work

So, about a year ago, Ben and I started talking about adding on to our house.  Let my first, start by saying that I love my house.  It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, cozy (nice word for SMALL!) kitchen, walk out basement ranch style house.  L.O.V.E.  except... that it really is too small for our growing family.  If you ask Ben, he wants 12 kids... if you ask me, 4 would be perfect.  And, 4 kids, just won't fit into 2 bedrooms, when 1 of those bedrooms is mine.  :)

So, we started talking about it, and around September, I started making some phone calls.  We started getting people lined up to give us bids on how much the addition would cost.  We settled on Scheibler Design and Build - owned by Rusty and Travis Scheibler.  I went to school from 1st through High School with Travis' wife, Natalie, so we were very comfortable giving them our business.

Almost exactly 1 year later, and there are NO regrets, we LOVE every last detail of our new addition.

So, let me walk you through our journey:  (I must tell you, I've been wanting to do this post for a while, but all the pics just kept stifling me... so I'll do it in bits)

The before pics:  They broke earth around mid-Nov.  

This one is where the new addition will sit.

Our new septic... isn't that lovely... :-/  Such a disgusting thing costs SO much money!

Luckily, Ben's brother owns Schutte Excavating, so they were the ones who did all the earth work.

I should tell you,that by now I was SICK of the mud... and was cleaning my floors EVERYDAY- and let me tell you- that gets O.L.D.!!!!

Brad, Ben's brother, cutting away at our existing porch.

This was the view from my former front door... 

Part 2 will be tomorrow!  Stay tuned!