A big week for me this week.  They started work on building my home on Lake James.  The attached is the picture from my dock.  Although not a wilderness lake, the quiet is a pleasant surprise and invokes memory of canoe country.  Same kind of crystal clear water.  Much warmer, of course.   (You need to Login or Register   (You need to Login or Register

Congratulations Azalea. A dream realized for sure! It looks wonderful.

Beautiful!
Construction pics to come?

[quoteConstruction pics to come? ][/quote]

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Footings are done, no pics of that yet. It was amazing to watch how easily and quickly the "cat" cleared the building envelope.

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Cool.  Amazing how much like MN it looks!  That must be what is meant by..."Carolina in the pines"!

Foundation is in. The garage will be built over the section in the foreground (a storage room within the foundation walls). The living space is in the background.

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Love it....keep the cool pics coming

Neat tool, the "gravel shooter" (for the gravel that goes under the slab).

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I think some of these construction guys never stopped playing in the sandbox. It's just a bigger sandbox with bigger toy trucks.  :)
Did they let you shoot some stones too? They should share their toys.  :D

Looks like a neat floor plan.  I would be interested in hearing about the local gov't hoops you had to jump through and what your shoreland rules and regs are down there.  By the looks of it, you couldn't replicate that in MN - particularily the dock system and building on the bluff.  Just curios.

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I would be interested in hearing about the local gov't hoops you had to jump through and what your shoreland rules and regs are down there.

Entities (and this may not be all inclusive) from which approval must be obtained to do almost anything include:
Duke Energy,
NC soil and Water conservation,
Burke County
Southpointe Homeowners Association

The lots in my development had specifed for them "pier zones", your dock must be built within them.  In most cases the lots only has a bluffed shoreline (I have a beach but most do not) so having a dock requires building on the bluff.  My dock extends maybe 3' onto the bluff with about a 3' wide walkway.  I could do not do more, no building of anything is allowed with 65' of the lake.  The total square footage of everything to do with the dock can be at most 1000 sqft.  There are restrictions on materials that can be used.

On the shoreline you will see big rocks.  I was required to add those (shoreline stabilization).  You may also see in some pictures dead trees in the water.  They may not be removed.
In fact you can do almost nothing in that 65' buffer.  Even if a tree dies, you can not cut it down without permission.  And if you do, you must replace it with trees that total the same diameter (a 10" tree if taken down mustbe replaced with ten 1" trees.)

It was a hectic month of August for me.  While some work is still being done, I got the CO for my house last week. (Pictures when I get a chance).  But instead of now sitting back and enjoying it, as of the beginning of August I ended retirement and took a job at the Governor's School for Science and Math in South Carolina.  It is a residential school for 100 elite juniors and seniors (high school) that teaches them college level courses.

So August involved the financial dealing of closing with the builder, getting a mortgage, moving furniture out of a mobile home into the garage of my new house (could not move into the house without the CO), finding a place to rent in SC, start a new job, and move all my stuff in Virginia to either NC or SC (Oh, and my wife is still living in VA where she is starting the school year).

It was not a boring month.