Open House #2 is in the books

We had our second open house today... last Sunday was our first one. We also had a private showing this past Monday and another one this past Saturday.

We're told there were quite a few people in the open house today, and the couple who had the private showing yesterday (Saturday) came again today and stayed for the entire open house (1 hour).

They also walked around the *outside* of the house (despite 4-6" of snow on the ground)....

Hopefully that means they're interested!

We don't have an open house schedule for this coming weekend, but there will probably be one for the following weekend.

Paul

D-Day is here

Well, today was the big day!

Our first open house was earlier this afternoon. The realtor tells us there were three couples that came thru, one of them gave her their information for future contact about the house.

It's been a long couple of months of packing up and decluttering things in the house but we finally got it all done.

Also today, Dad came out to our lot with a wood chipper and we spent the day getting rid of the massive piles of brush that were all sitting out there.

So now, basically, we can sit back and relax (a little) and wait for the house to sell.

Next month I'll start talking to lenders about getting the loan side of things going. Once the house sells we can have Dennis begin with the construction on our next place.

Paul

edit:  We had a call at about 2:30 Monday afternoon.. someone wanted a private showing at 5:30 that night!
So Robin and I left work a bit early and rushed home to get the place "open house" ready.
The couple apparently liked the house, but had another one they liked a bit better... so we're still waiting.

The next open house is scheduled for this coming Sunday and we've also been told that there's a woman who wants to set up a private showing as well.

Set in motion....

Well, we went and did it! We signed the contract with Dennis last Saturday!

At the meeting, along with alot of other paperwork, we got a list of subcontractors from Dennis and approximate dates we should have met with them by.

Most of them are local to the Fox Valley area, one is up in Green Bay (the cabinet place).

Now we have to finish getting our current home ready to put up for sale and then we can focus on meeting with the subs.

My dad has been up at our lot a few times this week and now all the trees are cut down that need to be cut down. There's still alot of brush out there, a large pile of cut wood, and 4 or 5 large logs that I'm hoping a local lumber company will buy from us.

Things keep rolling on!

Paul

Some progress!

Hi everyone!

Well, this Saturday is the big day! (well, okay, a big day for this far into the process)... we're meeting with Dennis to sign the contract for him to build our home!

Once that is signed, he'll put together a list of all the subcontractors and when we'll need to have met with them and made decisions pertaining to the construction of our new home.

On the lot, more trees have continued to come down. Although, now that it's around zero degrees and there's snow on the ground the tree cutting has stopped for now. There's probably around a half-dozen larger trees (8" diameter up to about 24" diameter) to come down yet, as well as around a dozen little trees (2"-3" in diameter) that have to come down.

Of course, we still have a huge pile of wood to get rid of yet and an even bigger pile of brush sitting there too! lol

Paul

TimBERRRRRrrrrrrrrr!!!

...and the trees come crashing down!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a safe New Year's Eve!

Dad came out yesterday and the day before and we hit the task of knocking down trees in a big way (I got a chainsaw for Christmas -- thanks Mom and Dad! -- and so we had two saws going both days).

We knocked down somewhere around a dozen trees in those two days, varying in size from smallish ones near 4" in diameter all the way up to the biggest one so far at around 30" in diameter.

The trees would come down and we'd use Dad's truck to pull them out to the front of the woods (near the wood pile)

The growing wood pile and Dad taking a break

for cutting and easier piling, while all the brush and limbs from the trees were put on the brush pile to the left of the above pic (both pics above were taken early in the day yesterday.. both piles are much larger now!).

...and an already large brush pile...

There's still a ton of trees that need cutting, including three very large trees that are about 24" in diameter each.... probably the tallest of which is "Robin's Tree";  it's simply the nicest tree on the lot, it's pretty much exactly in the middle of our proposed house plan, and Robin is very sad to see it have to go (we would have to move the house soooooo far back on the lot to save this tree that it would cause other issues to do so).

That's Robin's Tree at the very center of this pic!

 We measured the length of smaller diameter (about 12") and somewhat shorter tree that we knocked down yesterday in an attempt to figure out how tall Robin's Tree is;  The tree we measured is right around 75' tall... and our best guesses based on standing height is that Robin's Tree is around 90' tall! (that thing is going to make a huge crash when it comes down!)

Dad is thinking about maybe visiting the lot again today and possibly knocking down Robin's Tree, so since Robin had to work yesterday the girls said goodbye to the tree for her:

Lyndsey, Rachel, and Robin's Tree

 The girls have been out on the lot both days with us and have had an absolute blast roaming around the woods and playing the entire time! (and getting absolutely filthy both days! lol)

Also, in other big news not involving cutting trees down... the builder (Dennis) and I sat down on the 23rd and went over the bids that came in for the revised/downsized floor plan. I have yet to sit down and go through the bids line by line (that's my project for tomorrow), but the overall price means that it looks like we have our plan set! We haven't signed a contract with Dennis yet, but more than likely will in the very near future.

Then the single biggest thing we have to do for the next month and a half is get our current home decluttered and cleaned up so that we can put it up for sale in late February.

We already have a decent amount of boxes and items in the storage garage, but that's only a small part of what will be in there by the time we put the house up on the market.

Paul

Elevations

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving...

Our builder, Dennis, is back from his vacation and sent us an updated pdf of the front, sides, and rear elevation of the outside of the house.

We're going to revise the rear elevation a bit to make more of the great room's wall all windows, and the 4 tall windows on the right elevation will be replaced by two smaller windows which will be just above the cabinets/shelving that are on the inside on other side of the fireplace. 

But as far as overall appearance, this is what it's going to look like. We're going away from any brick on the house to a part stone exterior on the front only. The look of the stone should help it fit in a bit better with the woods being all around it. Dennis also mentioned that he'll expect the re-bids to be back in about 3 weeks, so we should have the numbers back before the holiday.

I'm going to meet Dennis at the lot tomorrow to see if the trees Robin and I would like to be able to keep will actually be far enough away from the house to be kept or not.

Paul

Houston, we have a floor plan!

Well, that didn't take long.. :)

After my last post and talking to our builder, he started on "shrinking" the square footage first thing Monday morning... and by Monday noon had an updated plan back to us.

After several back and forths between us and him we arrived at what appears to be our "final" floor plan.

Our builder is going to be away for a week or so, but when he gets back the next step is he'll work up a front elevation and then once that is done he'll send this out for re-bidding.

In the meantime I'll get the guys here at my workplace to stake the corners of the house on the lot and work on a site drainage plan. Also this week, there will be some trees cut up and gotten rid of. For right now that will be only the dead ones and there few that are down from a storm earlier this year. 

Paul