We're good to go!

It's been a bit since my last post here.... Here's a brief rundown of what has gone on since August:

During that time we gave Dennis (who we've now selected as our builder for this home) the okay to go ahead and send out the house plans for bidding/pricing. The pricing came back at a favorable number (I had a range in mind I was hoping to hit and we were near the top end of that range) per square foot.

I've had meetings and / or phone conversations since then with soil testers, septic designers (for the mound system), and well drillers. Once we'd received estimates from those contractors as well it was time to run off to the credit union and see if we are even in the ballpark with being able to afford this house and get a loan for it.

...that appointment was Friday....

Without doing a credit check or actually going through all of the details of our finances (there were basic questions about how much we make and what we pay now on loans, etc) the loan office at the credit union told us that we'd have no problem qualifying for a loan for the amount we want! WOOHOO!

So then we ran some more numbers and found out the approximate loan amount that we'd need based on quoted value of the new home, approximate value of our current home and lot. (not including any additional cash we'd have available for a down payment)

At this point we came to realize that we need to cut about 10% off the total value of this new home. 

So I contacted Dennis over the weekend and talked to him about it. He said it's very common for this to be the procedure during new home construction and it's going to be relatively simple for him to come up with a list of suggestions on just how we can go about trimming the cost down just a bit.

With any luck he'll have those suggestions back to us yet this week. Once we decide on a route to take to this goal then I'm pretty sure Dennis will have to send out the plans to get re-bid depending on the changes made.

With Robin now working at Werner Electric (and thus being able to buy light fixtures at a much lower cost) we also took the opportunity to run a quote through Werner for the light fixtures in our future home. We came out very close to the allowance amount that was in the quote from Dennis, so that's good news as well.

I plan to watch those allowance numbers very closely and try to get us as close to them (or under them is even better) as possible.

Once we get an overall plan/design set that we can afford then we'll sign a contract with Dennis to build this home and then we'll have a bit of down time on this part of the process probably until after the holidays or so.

Recently as well, we've rented a storage garage to begin storing all the excess "stuff" we have in our house that we need to get out of there prior to putting our house up for sale/showing it (and we have a TON of "stuff" lol). This will be the single biggest part of what we have to do over the next two months in relation to our new home.

Paul

The Beginning....

Well, it has begun... kind of. :)

A few weeks ago we contacted two builders that we've had our eyes on for a couple years now. We met with them both out at our lot and talked with them for quite a while about our schedule and our thoughts on what we're hoping to do as far as building a new home goes.

We met with the owners of O'Brien Builders and Silvercrest Builders (Dennis and Scott, respectively).

Dennis does his own designing on autocad and Scott has an architect he works with almost exclusively. We chose to give Dennis the plans that I've been drawing up over the last few years and let him go to work on those.

Since we had the floor plans so far along already, his first goal was to get a front elevation that we liked. After he did that he went to work on tweaking the floor plans.

After a week and a half we had 3 versions of the floor plans to look at. All of them we the same except for a few changes to each.

As it sits right now, Robin and I have been sitting on the floor plans. We're really liking the last version he gave us, but I just haven't had the time to call him and set up a meeting to talk with him about it yet. As soon as we can do that then he'll throw together a rough layout of a basement plan (in case we are able to finish that off at the time of construction) and we'll be on our way.

Once that happens then we'll take the plan set to Scott for pricing and compare that to Dennis' pricing numbers. We're also looking into putting our new home into the fall Parade of Homes next year as an option as well.

We're currently hoping to begin construction in spring (once the weight limits come off the roads) with completion about August, and are thinking about putting our current house up for sale some time in Feb. of next year.

Paul

First snow

Snow storm Allison dumped well over a foot of snow on us over a 24 hour period of time. A few days later we stopped out at our lot to check it out.
As you can see, the girls loved it. I think it'll actually work out well to get some snowshoes and do some showshoe-ing back there as well.

Survey map of our lot!

Hello again!

I'm adding the survey map of our new lot. You'll see just how wide and how deep it is. There's what's called out as a "37-foot setback"; not only is that how far off the street we have to keep the house, but that also happens to be approximately where the woods begins on our lot.


In the previous post when we were at the lot we posted "Private property" signs near the trail, etc. got rid of some "farm-type" junk that was lying around in the woods (old metal scraps, barbed wire, etc), and cut some dead / leaning trees down.

This weekend is the summer Parade of Homes here in the Fox Valley. We'll be able to attend this time around and view homes and speak to builders with a lot in mind to be able to see how things would sit on that lot, etc. We have a few builders in mind that we are interested in possibly going with, and two of them have homes in this summer's Parade.
It should be fun! :)

If you are unfamiliar with what the Parade of Homes is all about, go here to the Fox Valley Home Builder's Assoc. website about it:
Parade

Then click here for more detailed info on all the houses up for show this summer:
Parade Homes

Paul

Our Lot!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our new blog which we'll use to chronicle our home building efforts.

While we won't actually begin construction until spring of 2012 we found this lot and decided to jump at it! We signed the paperwork and closed on the lot last week Thursday, July 23 2009. (and yes, that picture currently in the header is from just inside the beginning of the wooded area of our lot)

The lot is 1 acre, basically fully wooded. It's in a quiet "country" subdivision in the Town of Greenville (about 2 miles from where we live currently). The lot is on the top/horizontal part of the "T" shaped subdivision.

There's no city water or sewer hookups in this area (and probably never will be), so we'll have to dig a well and build a mound system for our use.

There's a nice wide path leading through the middle of our lot which leads to a power line easement maybe 100' beyond the back lot line of our property. Beyond that is another 6 acres of wooded land owned and maintained by the homeowners' association (it has trails through it as well).

We weren't intending on purchasing a lot this early on in the process, but with the Town moving toward new land-use regulations which would prohibit lots of this size from being created in the future, we may well have been looking at one of the last few 1 acre wooded lots available in Greenville.
In the mean time we plan to continue attending the Parade Of Homes events put on by the Fox Valley Home Builders Assoc. twice a year looking for ideas, contacts, and information that we'll be able to use when time comes to build our home.

Our lot is about a mile down the road from the Greenville YMCA, and about 1 1/2 miles down the road from the Greenville elementary school and middle school. The schools are connected to the YMCA via a nice paved trail.

Here's a photo from the road in front of our lot...



Here's a pic of the girls and their friend Kaitlyn searching for frogs in the new dried-up small swampy area behind our property line (they didn't find any frogs... but did find several insects!)



....and here's Lyndsey on the prowl for insects....


Robin, Lyndsey, Rachel, and I are happy you are able to stop by every now and then and share this little journey with us!


Paul