Wow a big house and lovely grounds. I think 4 of my house could fit in yours. Lovely grounds , I know how much work they can be. I love posts like this........... :D

It must be soooooooo nice to have a big house. I live in a apartment size house.....BUT just for me & hubby it's ok. I love your porch. I always wanted a wrap around porch

Beautiful! My favorite part? The detached 3-car garage! My husband would be in heaven!

How on earth do you LIFT a house to put in a new basement?.....I just can't imagine that.........do you not have really deep concrete foundations like we do over here?

Karen

Denise your house is beautiful...

They put hydrolic jacks on the basement floor to the floor beams of the first floor. once they had it jacked up a few feet then slid these huge beams under the house and jacked it up really high. Then they dug a deep sloped hole toward the house and used big equipment to bang the rocks out of the foundation. They dug out all around and below the house on beams. We had to enter the house by planks , very scary at first and then I decided I could join the circus.
The foundation we put in was pink styrofoam forms and cement in the middle. Really insulates well and we have tubes in the floor so hot water runs thru it. Very nice.

Don't you just love that radiant heat?? We have it in our basement floor as well as the first floor. I spend most of my time year round bare foot inside and warm floors in the middle of winter in Vermont are really nice. And no registers to collect dust!! When we built our house 10 years ago, that was my first priority. The second was warm and cold water mixed for the toilets. That way the tank doesn't sweat from the cold water.

Isn't that fun :wink: having your house up in the air! We did the same thing except we installed a 10 foot above-ground basement so the house was really high on its stilts. And, we bought all the stuff from Vermont to run heat through the floor. It's fabulous having warm floors in the winter. In the summer we can bring our cold water in through the floor so it cools the house. My house isn't nearly so fancy as yours, though, and the woods keep threatening to take over the yard. If we don't mow the grass, trees grow! Makes flower gardening a real accomplishment. I love your gardens.

b.zang - love your part of the world. We spent some time up there. ook took the Canadian rail from Toronto to Jasper and spent a week in Banff. Totally amazing area. Made extended stops in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. Another trip was to Hudson and North Bay and Ottawa. Most of our trips are North into Canada. Cooler weather, unspsoiled country. My mother was born in Canada but closer to the Ottawa area.

We have a log home in the woods and share the lanscape with the wild animals. We plant it, they eat it. Only far away neighbors - very peaceful and quiet.

Your house is just beautiful. :-) I always like houses with big porches.
I lived in a very small apartment but it is just me and hubby.
Maybe some time in the future, I'll have a house with a big porch :!:
Your garden is very nice too. :D
yoya in ohio