Setting the points of the house

We met today with Stephanie our architect and Doug our surveyor to set the points of the house. This is a more or less rough estimate of where the corners of the house and garage will be located. This may change and will have to be nailed down before the excavation of the site starts, but this lets the guys doing the clearing get an idea of how far back and to the sides they must remove trees, brush, and undergrowth. I bet the mulch pile is going to get much bigger when the chipper comes back!

Doug our surveyor taking charge

the merry crew-Deb, Stephanie our architect, Pam and Doug

woodland view

looking toward the pin oak and the street-quite secluded

Clearing goes on...and on

The guys are clearing out tons of honeysuckle (a friend suggested a name for our site-Honeysuckle Acres!) dead trees and underbrush, have not seen any nests disturbed yet and no serious injuries other than a few scratches. We are meeting today with our surveyor Doug Spreen, our builder Robert Blick and architect Stephanie Labbe to establish the corners of the house. From there the clearing will go 70' back beyond the house, on the east side to the hillside and 60' on the west side. The main objective is to make sure there are no large trees that could fall on and damage the house. We are making the down payments on the lumber and windows today so we can lock in at the lowest price Robert and Nasse could find for us.
After the clearing is done Robert will start establishing the driveway, which will ultimately be gravel with concrete for a section for parking near the entrance of the garage and a small apron at the entrance to the street. Having a gravel driveway gets us LEED points!
I should say a word here about the land. We acquired 3.82 acres at the dead end of Leafwood Drive in June 2015, purchased from the Church of the Way. The church had owned the land since the 60s, they were going to build a church there but then the pastor died, it looked like it would not be a cost-effective site for them as time went on, so they put it on the market in the winter of 2014. Our son, Matthew and his Fiance Tara had moved home from Boston and were looking on Zillow for a place when they came across it. We went together to look at the property, the kids were not interested so Deb and I immediately snapped it up.
The land: it is incredible. It is ruined urban land just crying out for help to grow new healthy trees, rid it of invasive plant species and restore it to its native state. It is bordered by Spring Grove Cemetary/Arboretum  on one side and on the other sides by Hamilton County Parks land, so there will be no development anywhere near us.
Building LEED means to disturb the land as little as possible, use landscaping that requires little or no watering, plant grasses that do not require mowing. We have the work of the rest of our lives ahead of us, and we will do this while living in a passive solar house with solar energy keeping us off the grid as much as possible.