We Have Water...

in more ways than one!

The seller drilled the well!  whoo hoo!

I drove the kids out to see what it looked like.

it happened to stop raining just long enough to take pictures.

not very impressive, is it?

but it's there, and it's a step in the right direction!

the torrential rain also left some nice sized puddles

well, pretty darn big puddles.

Puddles The Boy COULD NOT RESIST.  Isn't that was rain boots are for?

I opted to park outside the pasture, and walk in.

I didn't want to get stuck.

(fast forward a couple of weeks)

On Christmas day, after opening all the presents and washing all the brunch dishes, we decided to drive out and show the property to Josh's mom, who hadn't seen it yet.

Josh decided to drive right on out to the property, through the adjacent fields.  We got out, looked around and as the rain started to drip we opted to leave. 

well

we tried to leave.

Josh misjudged the depth and mushiness of the ground.

we got stuck.

(hee hee hee)

Josh and Grandpa pushed and pulled, hemmed and hawed...

finally, we called my folks and asked them if they'd like to take a drive,

and oh, by the way, if they could bring a rope....

the kids were happily reading new books they'd received that morning and eating gobs of chocolate.

When my folks got there, they were grinning and laughing!

(wouldn't you be?)

what fun!

they quickly pulled us out past the mushiness, and we were on our way home.

It was truly a Christmas adventure.

:)

Well Drilling

Got a message today from our Realtor, letting us know that the Seller was having the well drilled today.  Cool!  She also let us know that the Seller is waiting on a permit from the county before he can install the shared driveway.

That's about it.   Just waiting.

Ordering our House

We meet with Kellie this morning and "ordered" our house.  We ordered a 4 bedroom 2 bath house.  1920 square feet.  Adair has different tiers of homes within each floorplan.  The most basic tier is called "The Classic"  no choice on which cabinets, limited carpet and vinyl options.

We're going with the classic 1920.  We made a few changes, miror really, but they will make the home work better for us.

Here's the floor plan - with our changes

We only changed a few things -

• vinyl in the dining room (standard was carpet)
• vinyl in bedroom 2 (MY SEWING SPACE!!!!!)
• moved the wall between bedroom 3 and 4 (the girls will share this room, which ends up being 18"x10"
• flipped the hall closet towards the girl's room (so they can each have a closet.)
• Vaulted ceilings in the kitchen, dining and living rooms

There were two "standard" options that we wanted -

• a 5" shower in the master bath instead of a tub.
• a door from the back of the garage to the outside.
• a couple of dedicated electrical circuits - well and microwave

They had to do a bid for the first set of changes, since they aren't standard.  Those and the two standard options added a bit to the total cost of the house.

Simce we're using every penny of our construction loan, in order to get the changes in the house, we're going to have to "give up" a few things on the outside.  Mainly a concrete pad in front of the garage.  It's going to be gravel all the way to the garage, and no concerete sideward to the front door.

I have to be honest. 

This appointment was most frustrating. 

I'm not on our loan paperwork - I don't work enough to add anything to the income side.  I felt very ignored.  Kellie directed everything to Mr. Choas and didn't include me at all until it was time to pick out the flooring.  I'm not sure if this was because I'm not on the loan or because I'm a woman, but it was frustrating.

It didn't feel like Kellie was ready for us, and she was having problems with their new software.

The biggest issue was since the land is included as part of the construction loan, they had to change the dates on some of the documents to reflect that.  Usually you have 60 days from the date you order the house to get the site prepped before you lose your price and have to pay more.

60 days from today is January 15.

We aren't scheduled to close on the property until after Christmas.

Do you see the problem?  At the worst case we would have 14 days to get the site prepped before we lost the price protection of the house.

She wanted Mr. Chaos to sign incorrect documents, and she would "make sure we didn't lose our price on the house"

No. 

Nope.

I'm sorry.

A legal document is binding.  A handshake deal is not.

We went round and round and finally left that page blank, we would fill it in after she had talked to the Adair Financial. 

From what I've glean from others who have built with Adair - it is important to get everything in writing, correctly.

Anyway - we left feeling rather taken back. 

She called Mr. Choas after she had gotten everything straightened out and gave us a date.

All of our site prep will be done no later than February 28, 2011.

They'll start pouring the foundation and 120 days later, we'll have a house!

She gave a construction binder that has a great step-by-step reference on the process, as well as listing exactly when we'll need to do things.

Yeah!!!

Currently we're just waitiing on a bid from the eletric company and then all of our stuff will magically be transported to the underwriters who will decide if it's a go!

Because we're doing the classic line, there were only 3 or 4 choice for floorings and countertops.  We picked the most neutral, not to light, not to dark.

:)

Journals for the Kids

I've decided to get each of the kids their very own "Moving" journal.  They might write or draw pictures.  I wanted them to have a place to record how they see the process.   I gave them to them today, and they were totally excited.  It will be nice to have a record from each of them.

What a Whirlwind!

Wednesday we met with the seller at the property.  We talked about property lines, where we'd like the well dug, the access road/shared driveway.  He has owned the land since the sixties, so he was full of history about the area.

After we were done talking to the seller, Gary from Adair met us out there for the site visit.  We hadn't had time yet to put the flags out where the home is going to sit, but we had given him a site plan.  At this point Muffin decided she needed to go potty - which means she and I drove down to McDonalds to use their restroom.  Mr. Chaos and Gary continued to talk through things, like how big the pad needs to be and more details on the OTDs (owner to dos).  By the time we got back, they had gone over almost everything.

After Gary left, we staked out where we thought we wanted the house.  Muffin was a good helper - holding the measuiring tape and flags. We came home and adjusted the plan a bit, so we need to go back out and restake it - the trees are a bit bigger than we had accounted for.  (the smallest has about a 24 ft diameter!) and the lot is slopy-er than I had remembered.

Mr Chaos has put in calls to a few contactors about bids for septic, electrical and site prep. 

Feels like things are moving!

Monday Morning

Wow!  Things are starting to happen.  We have an appointment to meet at the property to confirm the property lines on Wednesday and we have an appointment to order our house on the 15th.

We drove out yesterday at looked at it again.  There's still no direct access to the property and we didn't want to cross the other lots to go stand on it, so we stayed in the car, but I did take some pictures :) 

cows and horses in the distance

the old red shed is the north-east corner (we think)

Pretty view, no?

The lower edge of the brown line of grass is the south-west corner (we think).

happiness!

Offer Accepted!

Our counter offer was accepted by the seller!!!  whoo hoo!!! I am totally excited!  (can you tell?)  Monday we get to start moving forward again!!!  Yeah!!!

:)

Counter offer recieved...officially...

We finally recieved the official counter offer from the seller yesterday.  We immediately sent over our counter offer that our Realtor had all ready to go.  She emailed it to the seller's agent first thing this morning.  Now we wait.

Any bets on how long it will take to get a response?

In the meantime, the Mr and I have decided which floorplan we want.

It's called the 1920.  Imagine the garage off the dining room.

and we're playing with where to put the house on the lot.

The Mr. played with his computer and drew this picture.  The dark blobs are two trees.  They are huge!  One is a cedar tree that smells wonderful and the other is a massive evergreen.

Still Waiting....

Yup.  we're still waiting.  We finally heard from the seller's realtor over the weekend that the seller had changed his mind and would be countering our offer.  We were supposed to get paperwork on yesterday.  Still haven't seen anything.

On a happier note, on the finiancial side of things we're all set.  Loan approved and ready to order an apprasial on our project....we just need a project....

So, really this is a non-update.

and....we're still waiting

We submitted our offer....and waited. and waited. and waited.  On Monday our Realtor got an email from the seller's agent.  Which said, basically that the seller liked our offer but went to the hospital for a day surgery and it would take a couple of days to get the paperwork signed.

okay.  that's fine. we completely understand.

Yesterday our agent sent the seller's agent a message asking how it was going, and he responded that the seller (who's 84) was still in the hospital recovering from surgery, it wasn't an in and out thing like he orginally thought.  and the seller didn't want to deal with the sale until he was feeling better. 

okay. again, we understand.  no big deal, we're in no real rush.

have I mentioned that I have no patience?

Offer submitted

The Mr. and I met with our Realtors today to make an offer on the property.  Cross your fingers!

No mud!

We went out and walked on the property on Monday.  It was nice.  Two huge evergreen trees and a slight slope.  The view is just stunning.  I'll have to snap a picture so I can share.

A school bus drove by and I didn't need to raise my voice to talk, so I don't think the road noise will be a problem.  Our realtor expressed concerns about the slope and how it drains and the lack of information on wells in the area.

I thought it was a positive thing that we weren't mucking around in mud, we'd had torrential rain for a couple of days and the ground wasn't soupy.  So, good drainage.

Sorry no pictures yet, forgot to take my camera with me.

What's the next step?  Our Realtor asked the seller's agent for the septic approval paperwork and any information on wells in the area.  He finally responded to her and sent the approval and a water test that was done on a neighboring property's well.  No contaminants to speak of. 

Now we need to make an offer on the property, and see where that leads.  We have a tight budget, but I'm optimistic that we'll be able find a number that makes the both the seller and us happy.

Stay tuned!!!

Happy Mail!!!

Our official Site Visit Information packet arrived Friday!

I sat down to look through it and it all seems so for-real now.

LOOK!  FLAGS!

To mark out the footprint of our new house!

Of course, we don't have property yet, so we're not 100% sure which house we'll choose, but FLAGS!!!

All the info inside answers most of the questions we've been peppering Kellie's email with. 

Kellie is the Home Ownership Counselor who is working with us.  She's great.  She's quick to answer email questions, even if it's just to say she's busy but will answer the next day.  She's been very straightforward and clear about a very confusing process. 

The packet explains the OTD's (owner to do's) and what the happens next.

The Beginning

We began by doing as much reseasch we could online.  The Adair website was helpful, as was googling the name and reading the articles written about the company.  We drove down to the Creswell office and met a Home Ownership Counselor.  It was helpful to talk to someone to see how the process works. 

Basically, you take care of getting the site ready (with Adair's assistance) and Adair builds the house you've chosen from their plans.

I was confused on the whole timeline of when things happen.  The first step is to apply with Adair Financial, the company that brokers the construction loan.  Once that ball was rolling, the next step is to find the property.

After spending weekends in the van with the kids, driving around the various sections of Oregon, we found a very nice parcel about 30 minutes south of Eugene.  It has everything we want with one exception - it's located on the main road through the area.  Car noise might be a problem.

We have an appointment on Monday to meet with our Realtor at the property and walk around it, seeing how loud the cars are.  Most likely, since we're in Oregon we'll be stomping around in the rain.  Fine by me.  I love the rain.  :)