Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Slight Problem

We now have a slight problem getting to and from the land - roadwork is being done on the road (That's a good place for roadwork to be done, isn't it? ) and we can no longer get to the land from both sides. Hopefully the work won't take too long, and hopefully it won't be a problem!

I have been looking into how to get services to the property, like garbage service and recycling and phone and cable and water and so on. I do not yet have the answers but I'm woroking on it. I am looking forward to having it all finsihed and us living in the new home :-)

Monday, July 25, 2011

Final Design Revisions sent off (I hope)

The last revision we got back from the designers was very close. We did a lot of mirroring of the house to get the right parts of the house on the sides of the land we want. Now that we know the land this is feasible. In addition, we made a few cosmetic changes involving the placement of doors and bathroom fixtures. We also have started commenting about the exterior of the house to get a patio out back and a covered area outside the front doors. With any luck we'll get the revised plans back before the 1st of August and everything will be right and we'll be able to go on to the next stage and authorize the completion of construction drawings.

Now that this looks like it will all come together eventually, we have started looking at our current house and seeing what we can do to make it more marketable. We have started getting a handyman to do some wood work repair on the outside of the house (and some interior work as well) and are taking bids from painters to get the outside painted. I'm still not sure if we'll sell or rent the house, but with the market as it stands now, renting is looking better and better.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The next revision

It's been a long time since my last post so I thought I'd post a short note. We got the fifth revision of the floor plan back from the designer last week and have returned it. I think we're getting close to having something we will work with. However, I feel that we are still falling into the designers bloat syndrome, where the easiest way to make it look right is to enlarge and add more space.

The changes we sent back in are minimal,so I am hoping we'll get what will turn out to be the final version late this week or early next. Maybe one more iteration and we'll have it conceptually ready. Then we get to have detailed plans drawn up and go out for bids to complete the interior of the house.

Then, once it cools off a bit outside, we will be starting to work on the lot and begin preparing it for us moving in. There needs to be some cleanup (from trash) and some cleanup done on the trees and scrub there. We also need to get a survey and find the actual property lines.

All in all things are still progressing, so maybe next summer we can move in.