Sand Torini - Building Our Retirement Home

In 1957, Johnnie Ray sang "Build your love on a strong foundation and happiness will follow you!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEiJwSCjSZ4 We're hoping this is as true of our home's foundation!  It certainly looks like it will be strong! First, came the piles.  On January 17, just 7 short days after the lighthouse was demolished, we watched a giant auger make 20 thirty foot deep 16 inch diameter holes in our lot.  As the drill was pulled out of each hole, concrete was piped in, then rebar was inserted into the concrete.    We went back a few days later to check the progress.  The pilings appeared to be dry and in the positions that the plan showed. We kept an eye on the lot every day, but didn't see any more activity until February 5th.  On February 5th, a crew showed up and put up some boards, string and flags. The next day, some real activity started.  The men dug trenches between the piles and started building rebar reinforcements

We thought it was a bit early but our builder asked us to go ahead and pick out the plumbing fixtures, tile and countertops.  It is a long drive into Jacksonville where the recommended vendors are, so we decided we could do it all in one day.  Tony wanted to throw in a visit to a commercial kitchen place and I wanted to stop by Costco and Ikea too.  I also needed to stop by the Social Security office to clear up an issue I was having creating an online account.  So...  I created a schedule for us that looked like this: In retrospect, that might have been a bit much for one day, but off we went. Our first stop at G&S Restaurant Supply was in hopes that they might have the commercial Tea Dispenser that Tony wants for our kitchen.  They did not. Our next stop at Ferguson Enterprises for plumbing fixtures was frustrating because there were no prices.  The salesperson just kept telling us she thought the items we were picking were within our budget.  We selected a kitchen sink,

If you read the blog about finding your retirement property, you know that we tried really hard to find an empty lot to build our home on but were unsuccessful, so the lot we ultimately bought already had a house on it.  It was a very unique house, built to look like a lighthouse. Our friend Zaine owned a lot just a few hundred yards from our lot and one afternoon over beers, he and Tony hatched a plan to move the lighthouse off of our property onto his empty lot.  He contacted a LaRue House Movers and got a quote for moving it.  For $29,500 the company would move the property and hold it 9 feet off the ground until a new foundation could be constructed, then they would lower the house onto the new foundation.  This did not include the cost of the foundation or  disconnecting and reconnecting the utility lines between the two addresses. Zaine did some further investigation regarding some modifications he wanted to make to the structure.  Building restrictions would not allow him to