Boxing Up

Okay we have a builder, okay we have plans, okay we better start thinking about moving out of here. 
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And we are.
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Looks like a mess?  It is.  Guaranteed to get worse. 

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Does it look like we have plenty of boxes?  Not sure.  Every day we come up with something else that won't fit in any box on hand.

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Good news: still room in the garage for all of this! (we think - we hope)
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Another project to keep us out of the bars and off the streets.
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Stay tuned!  

This is getting to be fun

With the magic of computers our new builder has created elevation views

 and a floor plan that has allowed us to see the layout as if we were there. 

Our new front door - don't know who these people are

Very exciting to us are these plans showed up at our house 

within 48 hours of giving him the Go Ahead!

Kitchen

Any changes we thought were necessary were cheerfully made

almost instantly into a new drawing.

This is getting to be fun! 

   

Stay Tuned!

Beginning "Phase II Waiting"

After a couple of weeks of sitting on our hands, 

we got a preliminary bid today that we accepted!

 Proposal accepted = $ deposit down 
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This proposal is from the contractor that has emerged as our favorite.   The proposal is about $$$k above what we first thought we wanted to spend, but our original "guesstimate" to get a house built has jumped up several times as we began to see we just weren't going to get what we wanted for what we originally hoped to spend.
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As time went on in this process, we had decided we were going too far in trying to modify existing plans from other builders, and we ultimately worked up a plan of our own which is somewhat an overgrown version of our mobile plan, with a bunch of features of the house we built in the '70's thrown in. This plan fits the property better, has windows and doors where we want them, and a bit of a bay window to let us view the birds, squirrels and landscaping.

We realized that many of the changes we were trying to incorporate into other plans were things that we had built into the other house, and decided  "What the heck – we loved most everything about that house, so why not incorporate some of the stuff we loved?"   (Knew we were adding more dollars with those features.)
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Bottom line:  We think we're going to like the house. The mobile interior layout is kinda neat, but as noted, we've missed some of the "quality" features of our previous home.  It will be nice to have doors go "clunk" when closing, instead of "tink".  It will be nice to have wood cabinets.  It will be nice to have lots of lights, and in logical places.
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We're now getting prepared for "Phase II waiting".  Our contractor thinks it will be near Christmas before he will get the engineered drawings done and the county hoops jumped through, in order to have a building permit.  We're guessing May as a completion date.
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So, here we go.  Lots of things to accomplish before a shovel hits the earth, but the wheels are turning!  We know there will be (as Dean sometimes says) "a few turds in the punch bowl" as we go along, but we're looking forward to the challenge. You'll probably read of some of the turds – er – challenges – in future blogs.
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Stay tuned.

To Turn 100! Wonderful!

 A dear friend of ours, Caroline, is turning 100 on December 20th.  All her friends are helping her celebrate this year.  

Last weekend a number of our boating friends from the Houseboat Yacht Club gathered to give Caroline hugs and congratulations.  For some of these folks, they may have have not seen Caroline for 15 years.  The time gap disappeared instantly. 

She has seen so much history, progress, and change in her lifetime.  Her attitude is enthusiastic and bright.  She's interested in everything happening around her and carries a positive attitude everywhere.  Definitely not an "old lady".

Everybody hopes that in their 100th year that they are as "with it" as the gracious Caroline.

A good time was had by all.

Yawn

No, Virginia, we won't be in a new house by Christmas!
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Ah, there is so much hurry-up-and-wait in this process of building a new house.  

This NW fall has been great to get the plants dug up and out from around the mobile.  Sometimes we have had to use the truck and a come-along to pull the plants from their current beds.  

We are using the "waiting" time to clean out and clean up the mobile and the garage, gathering boxes, donating to charity, packing the side rooms in the mobile, and have tentatively picked out lighting and appliances.  

 But mostly we are waiting for action.  

Stay tuned.

Business must be great

Think we should have thought about building a new house during the leaner years of the recession. 
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We've heard that a number of people in the building trades retired during that time or found another occupation.  It's been tough finding a builder who wants a project of this size - 1 home - or is not too busy to contemplate more work. 
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Here are some of our experiences with builders today:

• Contractor 1:  kept changing dollars in the bid – never answered questions
• Contractor 2:  wanted a contract and dollars to develop a bid
• Contractor 3:  said pay me money, when I'm done I'll hand you a key, go away until then

So as a consequence, this whole process is taking much longer than we anticipated. 
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Stay tuned.