Update

Today we had our permit review meeting with the county.  Sandra from Adair was there and had all the information the county needed.  We applied for the building permit and the septic permit.  We also applied for an address, which should take a couple of weeks.

Turnaround time on the permits is about 4 weeks.

We should have the site prep done by then....

if it would ever stop raining...

It's Official!

I haven't been ignoring you, it's just that nothing has been happening.

And then BAM.

We signed the closing documents yesterday!

We officially own the land!!

Now the fun can begin!

Josh and I were worried because it took SO LONG to get to this point.  We won't  have the site ready by the date on our contract - Feb 28.

Josh spoke with Kellie and then Lynn at Adair who both assured us that we can still move forward with this project, even though we won't have the site ready by the end of the month.

They were both very helpful and responsive to our concerns regarding price protection and Josh and I feel confident that we have made the right choice in choosing Adair. 

Now the fun can begin!!!

Whoo hoo!!

We drove out last weekend and took a look at the finished shared driveway.

Our shared driveway is quite long.  The driveway meets the road just past the white truck.

After it turns north, it follows the adjacent lot's property line before entering our property at the southeast corner of our lot.

 

The van is parked where the shared driveway enters our property. 

The turn from the shared driveway onto our property is a bit sharp.  We're mildly concerned aout 50' trucks making the turn...

We staked out where we want our driveway to be. 

The stakes are a bit hard to see... 

We met with Jeff, our excavator to talk about how the driveway was going to cross the drainage ditch - which we are calling a creek.  (hey, it does have water in it.)

We talked about how the pad was going to be built, because our site is sloped.

We also talked about how we are going to get power to the well for construction.

if we need to get power.

We have a flowing artisian well!

That means that water comes out without a pump!

Totally nifty!

I turned the facet all the way open.

Plenty of water!

We're hoping that there's enough pressure to satisfy the needs of the construction team.

It would save us a bit of money and work if we didn't have to run power all the way to it before the house was up.

Hmm, let see what else...

The loan should fund by the end of the week, then we'll receive our draw sheet and we can get started on our OTDs!!!

Here's the view from the southeast corner.

I'm hoping to take pictures from this spot throughout the process. 

I'm totally excited and have to remember that I still need to be patient.

They're forecasting snow on the valley floor tomorrow and Friday. 

snow is not conducive to dirt moving.

Movement...sort of....

We've had to push back our closing date (again).

It has taken awhile for the seller to get going on the shared driveway.

We drove out on Saturday and saw that they had begun the process of building the road.

 

This picture is taken from the main road.  There will be asphalt as far as the big rocks go, and then we'll have a gravel road.

The gravel road will go straight back to where the little white poles are (kinda hard to see.) 

There the road will turn left and go to our property.

Things are happening....slowly....

We have Loan Approval!

Whoo hoo!!!  We have loan approval!

(pending a few conditions, like county approved access to the property and a water purity test.)

I

AM

SO

EXCITED.

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.

:)