Gosh, building a house takes a long time. Even longer if you decide to include a basement. Seven months after we moved out of Casa Del Sol, and five months after we tore it down, we are now the proud owners of a large hole in the sand. What took so long? Three months of that was spent waiting for the permit . So we didn't really get started till the middle of February. Digging out all that sand to create retaining walls - to hold everything together while we complete the basement and pour the foundation - took a couple of weeks. The walls of the basement were done by early March. Since then it's mainly been prep for the pouring of the foundation, with drainage and power lines being put in.  Meanwhile down in the bottom of the basement the concrete floor was poured and polished. This will be the floor of the wine room and the den. If we like the concrete, we'll do it exactly the same on the ground floor - where the foundation will make up the floor of the living/ dining room