The few pictures on this page cannot begin to tell the long process of finishing the hand clearing, followed by the arrival of the first, baby excavator that merely made a large enough spot next to the container so the main excavator could be unloaded.
From the date the first excavator arrived, to the state of the prepared building sites, took over 4 1/2 weeks. The majority of this time was spent hammering the lava rock with a large pneumatic ram attached at the end of the boom, then scooping away the resultant rock.
This is a noisy and difficult process, but there isn't really a better way, given our desire to leave as many trees as possible.
All pictures on this page were taken with a digital camera, and a number of additional pictures were taken with regular 35mm SLR cameras. Once the film is located and scanned, these pictures will also be added to this page.
Click on any image to see a full size image. Note: the full size images are 1024 x 683 pixels and range from 115 to 350 Kilobytes each, so a broadband connection such as DSL or Cable modem is recommended for viewing full size images.
18 February 2006
Half of the circular (public) and most of the side (private) driveway is roughed out, the extents of the three areas are all underway.
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spreading base course under slab for the workshop/apartment
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The excavator with the big bucket (only useful for scooping dirt and spreading gravel). Near foreground is corner of the roller
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The roller in foreground with the excavator behind.
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Excavator sitting on the pool area, to the left is the workshop/apartment area. Have most of the grade in place for the pool and lanai, but haven't dug the pool hole yet.
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in the hole for the main house crawl space, looking at the garage slab location. Still a lot of way to dig to get the crawl space deep enough!
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looking up what will be the private back driveway. Just the basics of where it will be, still a lot of work to get it level and so on.
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standing on the driveway into the main house garage, looking across the house to the pol area and workshop/apartment behind the ferns. The pickup in in the drivewy for the workshop/apartment.
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standing in the hole for the main house crawl space. Note there is about 4 feet of rock built up for the pool area.
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the exit of the circular drive is on the left behind the ohia logs in the mud
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14 May 2006
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back up the street, Entry for circular driveway is just past the telephone pole, other end is just visible at past the low point of the street, and drive for workshop back by the container.
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looking into the driveway, pick horizantal stripe is just before the septic system and excavation for the house crawl space
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further down the driveway, which splits off to the right to go around to the back to the garage. You can see the level of the garage just below the horizontal pink tape
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Looking down the private drive, note one of the local residents, what some call a guinea hen
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have made the turn to the left. The portico will cross the drive approximately where the larger rocks are at the left.
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same position as the previous pic, but looking 90 degrees to the right. Note the excavation for the crawl space of the house, with the higher level of the garage slab beyond it.
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45 degree veiew, the higher area is where the lanai between the main house and pool house will be.
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turned a bit more to the left, beyond the orange fencing is the hole for the swimming pool
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standing where the portico will be, looking at the exit half of the circular driveway.
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proceeding along the exit half of the driveway
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The street is now visible. Note this half of the driveway is not as wide as the entry. This is primarily so we can get Dump Trucks for gravel and such, concrete trucks and possible a big pump for pouring the slab for the garage and the foundation for the house.
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closer to the street.
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The rough hole for the pool. It's hard to see in this pic, but the hole is 10ft deep for the deep end and 5 feet for the shallow end. The 2x4 leaning agains the end wall is 10 feet long.
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looking from the deep end to the shallow end, the step is clearly visible. There's a sloping area at the far right corner, where there will be some steps/shelves in the water.
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Beyond the back of the pool, is where the catchment tank will be.
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