Guesthouse Crawlspace Footings Poured

The footings for the guesthouse were poured today. Took a bit more concrete than expected but should be ready for blocks to be laid in a couple of days. Plan is to have blocks delivered later this week and to build the crawlspace walls next week. More progress!

Here are a couple of pictures to show the work.

Getting ready to pour

Footing for rear wall

Front section

First Food from the Oven!

During the last curing fire the other day, the temperature in the oven was well over 700 degrees so seemed like a shame to waste the heat. Didn't have all the fixings for pizza but did have a pizza dough ball in the freezer. Formed two pizza shells and added olive oil, garlic, cheese, salt, and pepper- cooked in about 2 minutes and we ate them sitting outside as a before dinner snack, they tasted great and had a different flavor from being cooked outside compared to the indoor oven.

First Pie in the Oven!

Mighty Tasty

Then, Donna decided that a smore would be in order, the marshmallow cooked in about 15 seconds and was a perfect golden brown! Didn't have time to get a picture before it disappeared but Donna said it was wonderful!

Swing for the Patio

Here are a couple of pictures of the patio and the swing we hung under the deck. This is a swing I made a few years back out of some Cypress wood that I was given. Needs to be sanded again but we finally found a nice spot for it.

And here's a picture of the patio area looking down from the front deck.

A little cluttered with some oven tools and equipment I'm using on the oven build but gives a nice vew from above.

One more from under the deck.

TIle on the Pizza Oven

Yesterday I finished applying tile to the pizza oven. Tiles are 2"x2" tumbled travertine and think they will work well with the rest of the stone work. I applied a sealer over the tiles and will add the grout later this week. The grout is an epoxy type that should make the dome almost weatherproof. Not perfect but with one more coat of sealer, think I'll be done.

Here's a picture of the dome before the sealer was applied.

Here's a picture after the sealer, gives it a wet look and really brings out the colors in the tiles.

Guesthouse Crawlspace Excavation

This morning, the excavator for the guesthouse arrived through the fog and rain to dig out the crawlspace.

The first thing they did was to cut in a driveway area. This will later be covered with gravel once the construction work is completed.

Driveway

Then they worked the rest of the day to get the dig completed. Here's a picture of the work under way.

Digging out the main area

These are two pictures after the excavation was completed.

Looking from back towards existing house

Looking over porch area

The area at the front of the picture right above shows where the footing for the front porch will be laid. Next comes concrete for the footings- about 8-10" of concrete will be poured in to the footing areas and once this dries, the concrete block foundation will be laid. We're looking for the walls to be about 4' or so high, the back area may be a bit higher and it looks to me like they may have dug this a bit deeper than I expected. Worse case, we'll be able to add a couple more rows of block and make the crawlspace and have a bit more head room.

This last picture shows a ditching machine that will be used to dig two trenches. One will go from the side of the house to the electric pole across the cul-de-sac for the electric service. The second ditch will be over 300' around the cul-de-sac to the existing wellhead which is near the workshop. Sharing the well with the main house saves us over $5K! Originally, they were going to dig the trenches at the same time as the foundation but decided it would be better once the crawlspace is completed to finish that work.

DitchWitch

Pizza Oven, Second Coat of Stucco

Put a second coat of stucco on the oven this morning- this should help with weather proofing the dome. Here's a before and after picture.

Oven Curing

After completing the first coat of stucco on the oven on Wednesday, on Thursday I did another curing fire for about 5 hours. Oven temps reached nearly 500 degrees inside, the dome was warm on the outside but you could tell the insulation was keeping the heat inside.

I let the fire burn down about 3pm and at 8 pm, it was still over 400 degrees in the oven, this morning at 8 am, it was still reading about 200 degrees. Once the oven is completely cured, it should hold temps well overnight. The idea is that you can heat to 7 or 800 degrees to do pizza, then as the oven cools, you can cook other foods like roasts, bread, vegetables, etc.

If I can get the second coat of stucco applied on Saturday and do a couple more curing fires, should be able to cook for real next week- right now I've been using pine for the curing fires but will switch to hard woods if we decide to use the fire for cooking.

More later on the oven build.