River house is elevated!

Only half of the work is done to completion of this whole project, but the house is now completely elevated to the height it will be after the brick work is done. Wednesday the house movers elevated the house approximately 12 inches. Dave explained to me that it is a very slow process, involving 2 days of elevating. The steel I-beams are put in place, and a very strong hydraulic system is used to raise it up. They go up an inch, tweak and balance, and go up another inch, tweak and balance, go up another inch, etc. Thursday they finished the height of elevation and now the rest of the work will be completed by another masonry company who will build up the brick foundation. Then the house movers will "set" the house back down on top of the new foundation and take out the support beams. The brick people do all the "repair" work and patch up the brick holes that were busted out for the beams to be inserted. We went there yesterday to see the progress...its just crazy and amazing to stand inside the basement of our old house and see the sky and feel the wind at the same time. We both felt like we were in some kind of dream seeing the house "floating" above its foundation a good 40 inches. The brick people said they can start on Monday. We have a few decisions to make before they start: where to insert the new basement windows, the width and height of the garage door opening, and Dave has to build a few wood window frames. It will be a busy weekend! Some pics: