Our Hillbilly Home - Lifting the house

This story is about how we got started with our farm several years ago...I was chatting with a friend one day and talking about how we got our house, and she wanted to see some photos so I decided to write the story for my blog and share photos instead of trying to e-mail a bunch to her. If you missed the first part of this story, you can find the links to all the parts on my links page.
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At last the day we were waiting for arrived (Monday November 24, 2003) My Dad even made sure he was there because it's not every day we get to see the whole process of a house being moved, and we didn't want to miss it...especially since it was ours! :) There was a whole team of guys that descended on the farm the house stood on, and by evening the house was ready and waiting for the move the next day!

We were so fortunate that God kept the weather nice so we didn't have it slowing us down or having to postpone the move, believe me there was a LOT of praying about the weather by both DH and I that month! LOL After all it's the time of year we usually have it turning cold and even snowing...but that year it was unseasonably warm at times...and even better (for our move anyway), it was dry for the most part! :)

One of the first things they did to the house was to push a couple of big LONG beams under the house, that would be what supported it during the move, and what the wheels attached to. They just shoved them through the existing foundation and out the other side.


Once the beams were under the house, they stacked blocks of wood up, attached some jacks to them and jacked up the house. They jacked it up high enough, to put two more beams under the first beams, going out to the side. These would be used to slide the house over off the foundation and onto temporary wheels.


You can see the 2nd set of beams in the above photo...as well as the rollers they put on top of them that the first beams would rest on, those rollers are what actually moved the house over. They must be some heavy duty rollers, cause I know the house has to be heavy.


Finally after several hours of prep, the house was ready to roll over onto it's temporary wheels! How awesome it was to see it gliding over the steel beams.


And seeing the basement with the house sitting BESIDE it, instead of on it was strange to say the least.


Once the house was above the wheels, they had to get the cross beams out of the way, attach the house to the wheels and other odds and ends and it was ready to go for the next morning.

It was a long hard day for the men who were doing the moving, but a really interesting day for us watching. I was so glad I was able to be there and take photos of it all because while I'll never forget parts of it, the photos sure help me be able to see it all again more clearly. There are more photos in the Hillbilly Home set on flicker, if you want to see them. :)

Stay tuned for The Big Move...

...next time on "Our Hillbilly Home".
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More will come once I get the photos gathered, and words written...please forgive the fact that I'm clearly NOT a "writer" AND the time it could take for the next part to show up...a day, a week, a month or... God forbid... a year.