Going Vertical

Walking though what will be her new bedroom...

Going Vertical

Standing in the doorway of the children's retreat...

Going Vertical

Lizza checking out the wall of her bathroom...

Update...

After the pad was finally built high enough, the form for the slab was put together rather quickly.  But as much of this process has gone, we ran into another snag. 

Initially, we were hoping to have our foundation poured around the Thanksgiving holiday, however, this was definitely not the case.  With permit slow-downs, we became delayed yet another month.  Duke received this fantastic news while the family was out enjoying dinner to celebrate the girls' grades.  The way the holiday fell, our project could not be scheduled to be approved for approximately another three weeks.  Our contractor was hoping, through some contacts, to have that date moved to the next week, but was unsuccessful.  So now into the third week of December, we had approval from the city and our county permits in place to move forward. 

The week of anticipating appoval of all of the necessary permits, the prep-work for the foundation pour was done.  Our biggest Christmas gift this year was the fact that we now have a foundation for our new home!  Of course when something new happens, we cannot wait for the next step!  Our contractor told us that they would begin framing about a week after the slab was poured, making framing begin just in time for Duke's birthday!  But as things go, instead it was raining three days ago, so, no framing...

Now, on New Year's Day, Duke's birthday, we are waiting for lumber to drop at the beginning of the next week so framing can begin.  Of course, we are not excited for the weekend to pass so we can get back to work and school, but we can't wait for Monday to begin our next phase!

Here We Go

   Okay, it's been a while since there has been any update on what is going on with the house.  Finally, it begins!  The last week of October, trees started coming down.  But the way things have been going for this process, one week into clearing, it began to rain.  I suppose it was bound to happen eventually.  The area needed it after all, since there was a "burn ban" and everything.

With the rain, the process continues to stall.  After the rain, it is too wet to use the equipment without getting stuck, so the ground has to dry out before they can get back to work.  Then after they get back to work, it rains again.  The pack ratio is good, and then it's not.  Now after meetings with engineers, our builder has a new plan to move forward with, and right now the weather is cooperating. 

So ending our fourth week after clearing started, they are working on building up the "pad" for the foundation. 

    

And we have the start of a pond.  Well, we have a BIG hole in the middle of our lot. 

The end of this phase looks closer everyday!





Apartment Living

We have decided that apartment living is not the life for us.  And of course, if we could have seen into the future, we would have made different decisions about where our temporary home would be.  We were hoping, probably unrealistically, to be in the new house in time for Christmas.  But as things as turned out, we are now hoping for the spring. 

We didn't imagine that we would be in this situation for a whole year, and unfortunately, that is what most homes for lease were asking.  Duke even had a difficult time finding us an apartment since we have the three dogs.  The girls were very generous in offering to share each other's space temporarily,  although they are probably regretting it now.  Evidently, sink space is very important.  I  don't think I have heard this much bickering ever in their lives.  Perhaps it's because we didn't have such tight quarters before. 

Apparently three bedrooms are also hard to come by, especially on short notice. 

We moved into the apartment and found out quickly that we have way more stuff than we thought.  And that is with about three quarters of our things in storage.  The unit itself it pretty nice, but it is small.  The last time we lived in an apartment, we didn't have the girls nor the stuff!  Our neighbors seem very nice, and we have met some really nice fellow dog owners in the little dog park here.  Some things are all too familiar; like auto theft, which we have now experienced  twice!  Both in an apartment complex. 

Every day is one day closer to getting started on the new house, at least that is what we tell ourselves.  But the more time that passes, the harder  it is to keep a positive attitude about our situation.  Again, things always work out even if it is not the way we plan.  We know that it will.  We can't wait!

Waiting...

To say that these past four months have been an emotional roller coaster would be a great understatement.  This process has been a series of ups and downs.  At this point we are just waiting.  We have run into complications with our lot and  I am sure this happens more often than not.  I am not sure that it is always a good thing to know about every worst case scenario, but at least our new contractor is always sharing new information as he comes across it.  


Photo by Jordan

 

We contracted a second survey, and as our builder suspected, it varied from the first.  Unfortunately, because certain lines were different, of the little over four acres, we now have an acre that we can put a house on.  That in itself is really no big deal because we did not want to clear more than that out anyway.  And although we knew that the site for our new home needed to be built up, we were surprised to find that it would need to be about five to six feet.  Then came the soil tests to determine if we could use earth from the back of the property to build up the lot.  When those results came back and it was found that we could, then we had to check with the county to make sure that we could actually put a "borrow pit" in the back two acres.  After stressing over that issue, it was found that we could indeed do those things.  Duke wanted a pond anyway.  Of course this will end up changing the original estimate for "lot clearing," and we will have to change up some things in our budget. 

All along, we have been making preliminary decisions of what will be going into our new house.  Finishes for fixtures and cabinets, choices for brick and lighting have been chosen.  Bids for plumbing, electric, sheetrock, windows and such have been sent out and come back.  Our engineering plan for the foundation is approved and good to go.  So now, we continue to wait for a couple more bids to clear and then we can get started! 

After a whole month of fantastic weather with no rain,  we will see what happens when we finally get our go ahead.  We are getting into a "sloppy" time of year we are told, so we just keep hoping the weather will hold out so we can get moving.  The optimist in me, and yes, believe it or not there still is one,  keeps telling me that there will be trees coming down in the near future.  Duke, the girls and I just tell each other how excited we are getting, and how nice it will be once it finally does happen!   In the meantime, the family continues to keep up our daily routines and tries to stay positive overall. 
Some days are harder than others.