No turning back now... d*** it.

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1) After three years of near drought, the rain has returned to Dallas. At this point of the year, we should have 1/2 our average annual rainfall -- this year we are already at 2/3 of the annual average.

2) The foundation contractor from Hell. Our builder was looking for a new concrete guy so I got a name from our engineer who seems to have a great reputation and works on a lot of big, expensive homes in Dallas. Because of the rain, progress was slow. But this didn't stop DP the foundation guy from submitting invoices for work done, but before he had gotten to one of the contractually agreed upon stage. For example, he had the forms up and the steel on site, but not yet installed in the hole. He wanted to get paid for the form work and for the cost of the steel, even though it was not yet installed. The contract said he was to get paid once the steel was all in. When he didn't get $$$ within a couple of days, work would stop. Then we would get the bank out to decide how much they would release and the builder would make up the difference to get him moving again. You may ask why he wasn't fired the first time. Well, he had $5,000 of start up money and then he threatened to pull out his forms and the steel if we didn't pay him. Looking back, maybe cutting him loose would have been smart, but he kept claiming that the issue was he didn't have the money to buy the rest of the steel or any concrete until we gave him more money. On the strength of the engineer's recommendation, we thought we should stick with him as _we thought_ we understood his bind.

Finally the big day was upon us: the pour. Storms were approaching, he claimed he had time to get the slab done. Rain was to go on for days. I got the latest from weather.com and ran to the lot to stop them anyway. As I was making the case to wait, the first trucks arrived. We decided to go for it. They actually got the slab finished - eight hours later - just 5 minutes before the rain hit. I thought all was great. Well, on our 40'x40' slab, there is 1.6" deflection from the high to the low point. This is especially troubling along the perimeter because we are using steel SIPs which are made square. Second, caps on piers that are to be exposed in the back yard look terrible and will have to be replaced if we cannot bury them. Third, the surface is not really as smooth as it should be. So instead of simply sealing the slab for the finish floor, we may have to grid it down (about an extra $2,000). Fourth, a cut out in the garage slab for the big door is too narrow so we will have to switch from an 18' to a 16' wide door. Fifth, we designed steps in the slab around the atrium to hold the sliding doors. The door units are 6" deep so we wanted the steps to be 6 1/2" deep. DP made them 6" deep. This simply means we will have to chip out anywhere the concrete oozed into the space, but still. Finally, a hot and cold water line were pushed against the slab, exposing them to the outside air. These lines will have to be re-run.

The builder still owes DP $1,000 but DP never paid for the concrete ($4800) so we have a bit of a game of chicken going on. We can sue him (we have a pretty strong case), but DP tells me he owes the IRS $230k so we can just get in line.

Oh, and here is the best part. The total foundation contract was for $30,700. DP now tells me that he should have charged us $34,000 so we can use the extra $3300 he didn't charge us to fix the problems.

3) SIPs, the next great headache inducer! Oh my goodness. I thought we had it all worked out. First the slab is finished. Then we get the structural steel, followed by the wall panels, followed by the roof panels. So, how did it work? The walls arrived four weeks before the slab was done. The roof panels arrived a week later. Then the slab was done. Three weeks later the structural steel arrived. Not perfect, but at least we can get going. Ah, but wait, we still don't have and instruction booklet or sheets which describe which panels go where. So we essentially have the worlds largest jig-saw puzzle. Now the rain has slowed down the welder, so the structural steel isn't going up yet, but pretty soon this is going to be a big problem.

Anyway, here is what you have been waiting for, photos.

The courtyard is not yet set up to drain well. For a while it was filled with tadpoles, but now only an occasional few bubbles come to the surface... with the effect of making us feel like we are playing a part in a really bad horror movie.

Structural steel on the ground -- panels in the background.