Progress!

We have a temporary electric pole set up, as of today, YAY! Also, more exciting was to see all the dirt moved yesterday. Yep, we officially broke ground!

Here are some pictures.

It is like Christmas, seriously, to see actual movement on the property after so much dreaming, scheming, and waiting. So far, all the people we've worked with have been amazing, too. No horror stories of 4-month-waits here. Our people have been fast....and very patient with us, as we're learning all the ins and outs of this home-building stuff!

For instance, we thought we were still waiting on the water meter.....emailed our water company......and the reply was, "We believe it was installed Sept 15." Uuuhhh.....*blush* Thanks! We'll go check on that!! :D :D :D

Yeah, we're noobs. But we're learning!!! And Adair has been great at coaching.

It Happened!

We have a building permit! After feeling a little "lost-at-sea" in the wonderment of paperwork for so many months......WE FINALLY HAVE A PERMIT!!!

Whew.

The way I understand it is......we can pretty much start digging this weekend. Things are filtering in like the temp. electric, not necessarily in the best possible order, but....Terry says we are pretty much good to go for excavation.

I can't tell you how relieving this is. Seeing how quickly the fall Chill has set in, with its promise of rain, rain, rain, and more rain, I have been getting nervous. Last post about starting "this week" was a bit premature, I guess. Like I said, "lost at sea" is how we've been for a while, now. We thought we saw LAND, but then it turned out to be a mirage. ;)

Another thing to rejoice over: cabinet issues are resolved. I'm delighted beyond words at how Adair treated us to a tailor-made solution, going out of their way to get us the black-stained finish I was so dreaming about. They're going to come in raw, unfinished, and I'll be staining them myself. I'm pretty excited about getting the Dream Kitchen I've always wanted. :)

On The Cusp

I've been putting off a post because there was just nothing to tell. We have slowly been shoving paper around, permits, mostly, and finally got the last one out.......the building permit awaits. We decided to make the time go fast and went south for a vacation to San Francisco. It was great visiting friends there and having adult time while our kids played. We forgot all the intensity of Home-Building. We checked our email Thursday to find a note from Adair saying they expected to break ground this week!!


WOW!!

We drove by the property today and saw the Adair Homes sign planted prominently in the front. :) :) :) I got all tingly. :) :) :)

I am waiting to get a phone call from the excavator for an actual Ground-Break Time, when I'll be sure to haul the entire family up there with a camera to document the entire process.

THEN IT WILL ALL BE REAL!!!!!!!!!!

Colors

The one major project we opted to do ourselves is the painting. Inside and outside. Because I am obsessed with interior design (and exterior, as it follows), it takes a mammoth amount of research and refinement to figure out what colors are appropriate for which room. I have a LOT of decisions to make. We may end up painting everything in a neutral just to get started, but I'm not convinced YET that I can't get it "right" the first time. The exterior, for one, has to be Just Right the first time.

We have the added complication that we are building in a neighborhood, an older neighborhood, to boot, so we have to consider our color choices in the light of what is next to us, and WHO is next to us...we don't want to annoy our future neighbors with our extravagant house colors.

Sherwinn-Williams has a phenomenal program to help choose colors. You can upload your autocad picture of your house (better to use a computerized picture than a real one, less shadowing and stuff to deal with) to their program and choose from all kinds of paint colors. VERY helpful.

Right now, we're pretty undecided. Here are some ideas we're going back and forth between.

We both love the green.....but we love it so much we're already going with green for our big great-room/dining/kitchen downstairs. I'm afraid of having too much green. I want something warm...that will combat the greyness of the long winters here. I love choosing opposite shades for the accent gables. One cool color and one warm seem to do very well together.

Hmm....I've spent 6 hours on Sherwinn-Williams website today. I guess I should go get something non-virtual done. Like clean my rental home. ;)

The Paperwork...Again

Well, the update is anti-climactic. We own the property!! But we haven't started anything. That's what we keep telling people. YAY! WE closed!! No, we haven't broken ground. :P It's such a mood-killer.

Anyhow, the financing took another week to finish out, then another week to get our draw sheet, then another few days to get the checks, then a few more days to mail the checks to the people who need them....and now....we're waiting to hear from our septic designer that he's turned his design into the county. THEN we can apply for a building permit. :) When we get the permit from county, we can BREAK GROUND.

This week I'm going to start picking out paint colors. I take a long time to decide stuff. I lovelovelove interior design, and I don't want to make any hasty decisions that I will regret. I'll only have about 1 week to paint and I don't want ANY second thoughts. I need weeks to ruminate over color choices. A friend who is an interior designer has lent me a BOX FULL of paint swatches. :)

We're also working on some landscape sketches. We're watching shows like "Curb Appeal" to get an idea of how to do some of this stuff ourselves. There isn't any part of this new home that we haven't dreamed about and schemed about. Back yard, front yard, roof, porch, inside, upstairs, great room, kitchen.......I already have dreams about walking around inside our new home. :)

Closing Coming...

Got a Heads Up email today that we look like we're on time for closing on the lot! They want us to come in tomorrow to sign papers. YESS!! :) :) :)

I was just reading another Adair blogger's post about how excited he/she was about seeing the Honey Bucket set up on their lot, a sign that they were ready for construction to begin. :) I will be equally excited to see that sight on our little Carpenter Road place.

Honey Bucket, I'm holding out for you!

This process has been majorly exciting. Like a good movie....parts where you want to cover your eyes, then parts where you are on the edge of your seat, eyes glued to the action, then just times when it's ok and happy and there's hugging going on. Right now, there's just lots of hugging! I'm so thrilled to be doing this, I'm already thinking about building another home in like, 10 years. I am totally hooked on this building thing!