the first steps

This is the well that had to be drained and filled. But it's done and so are the first steps for the foundation, including laying the base concrete. Next week they'll start building the frame for the outside of the foundation.

There are two styles of kiso, the concrete foundation, that I know of. One just follows the layout of the walls, but we chose to have the full slab of concrete under the house. Most of the architects and other people I talked to seem to believe the whole connected slab tends to keep the house moving in one piece during an earthquake. One architect who works with reforming a lot of old farmhouses, though, believes that it's the flexibility of the separate bits of foundation that has kept them up for centuries.