Hello everyone! I trust everyone survived the holidays and I wish you a wonderful start to 2012! I apologize for the delayed post, but we have been buried in paperwork for the last few months (getting the contract from the builder reviewed and revised and searching for the best deal on a construction/permanent loan). I have to give props to Super Chuck as he dealt with most of that detailed stuff knowing he could do most of it on the phone and acknowledging the fact I will likely be doing most of the running around looking at tile, fixtures, cabinetry, paint colors etc. I was happy to dump most of that on him, but I had forgotten HOW detail oriented my husband can be! Wow, he found stuff in the contract I never would have picked apart! Here's to finding stuff to cover our butts if the contractor or subs flake out!!! Gold star for Chuck! So, anyway, we closed on the loan today - the title company came to the house and how great is that????? We will be funded by Monday. Let's get this show on the road! It appears we are only waiting for the permits from the City of Argyle to get things up and running. Seems they wanna keep out the riff-raff, so there are some hoops that must be jumped thru, but the good news is those hoops are to be jumped by the builder! No real work for us to do there. Just another case of hurry up and wait. I dislike this stage intensely! I look forward to the first hole being dug which should happen - according to the builder - within the next 10 days or so depending on the city. Come on, Argyle, we are fun and earth friendly, let us in!!!!!!
So, since our last get together here in blog world, Chuck and I have been doing some preliminary searches for house related items. Once we got our revised budget - which DID come down to a more comfy level, thank you very much - we began to look to see what actually fit into that budget. Well, come to find out, there is not a lot of recycled product out there that is not budget-busting (by a mile, I might add) or not available at all. So, we will be trying to get products with some recycled content and if that isn't in the cards I have insisted it be made in America. So far I have found tile that is made in America. I really wanted to do ALL recycled glass tile, but it is prohibitively expensive, so it will be used as accents along with porcelain. I have surfed the net for lighting and found a site that has vintage barn/industrial lighting. I love this stuff, it's simple and fits the overall look we are going for with the house. I have surfed for plumbing fixtures, counter tops and hardware until I'm blind, but have not settled on anything yet. I think Chuck and I need to sit down together and really look at the options and figure out what we can agree on. I have been given the names by the builder of companies to visit here locally to get some help with our selections. I know Chuck is cringing internally at the thought of spending hours upon hours looking at sinks and faucets, but I am really looking forward to this part!
Chuck had an opportunity to talk to the guy that will be helping us with "all our solar needs"! Chuck was able to pick his brain and find out we can go net-zero (attempting to have no electric bill and actually sell back to the grid) with relative ease. We have made an agreement with our builder that he will not participate in the solar stuff so we don't have to pay him a commission on it which makes it more affordable to go net-zero. The builder was nice enough to furnish us with a contact and Chuck seems to like what the guy had to say. I think maybe part of Chuck's liking of this guy was the fact he would possibly be the guy who would also sell us a battery back-up for the solar for when the electricity goes out. With Chuck working at home almost exclusively, electricity is vital! Also, it gets damn hot here in the summer and A/C is truly a wonderful thing to have ALL THE TIME when it's 106 degrees! We have come to understand that the electricity goes out "kinda often" on our new property. One day we were out looking at the property while Chuck's mom was visiting and got to meet our new neighbor. He's an elderly gentleman who is a retired pilot and quite the character. He told us the electricity goes out frequently when there are storms. He also told us he and his lovely wife have had flooding problems (it appears when the city paved the road they did not put enough of a culvert in to protect the homes on the south side of the street, so they flood - we have made adjustments to the house plan to raise our house so it doesn't become a problem for us). He kindly let me know of all the critters that can be found in the area. I won't go into which critters but suffice it to say, a fence will be of great importance to me early on!!!!!! No coyote is gonna get my pooch, that's for sure. I'm thinking it might also be prudent to get a firearm of some sort even tho' I hate them with a passion. Lori becomes Annie Oakley if Doppler is in danger! Lastly, our lovely neighbor let us know that his pilot buddies like to do "fly-bys" of his home (so, I guess ours will be in that flight path). I look forward to getting to know this and other neighbors. I just hope they don't hate us because of all the noise and possible mess involved in the building process! Guess I better start baking cookies!
At this point, Chuck and I are beyond ready to get this party started! The next update will hopefully state that the first shovel of dirt has been tossed. Photos will accompany that post and I'm sure you all will bear with me while you look at pictures of piles of dirt and holes in the ground! For us, they are the most exciting holes/piles in the world! The updates should pick up in frequency once things get moving. I look forward to your comments and questions as we go thru this! Your support is invaluable!
Love to all and don't forget to reuse and recycle!
Lori
