26 Miles

Home For Sale

// February 15th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Life

Let’s for a moment set aside the emotion and cost of the exercise to which we so readily dedicated ourselves these past 18 months. Forget the emotional roller coaster we tread weekly. Ignore the misunderstandings, endless waiting, driving all over town looking for just the right paint chip, and staying up pondering the cascade of “what-ifs”.

In these last three months since we’ve moved-in, our attention has been drawn from the vast ocean of activity that is the home-building process down to our favorite 3-footer, with his Mom’s brown eyes and killer smile. Only now do we see clearly what the fog of homebuilding obscured from us — our little guy should spend his last two preschool years with his Mom, and not in the care of a stranger — so we’re selling our house.

When we decided to build this monster we committed my wife returning to work this year, and putting our 3-year-old in a full time preschool/day care. We rationalized it in every way you might expect — he’s a sociable guy, he’d love it; it’d help his speech development; he’d benefit from the extra stimulation and preparation for kindergarten. The list goes on. But now the time to make those decisions is at our feet, and we can’t do it. This time in his life is unique and will only happen once. He’ll only be little for a bit longer and we want he and Mom to reap all the simple pleasures of this special time.

We’re hoping lightening will strike twice and we can again sell quickly and move on before the end of summer. We’ll have to see what unfolds. Wish us luck!

Moved In!

// November 29th, 2006 // No Comments » // Life

We moved into our new house on 11/21 and it looks awesome! We still have a few contractors coming and going fixing a few things, mostly electrical stuff. It’s been a long process but we’re finally in. It’ll be nice to have our first Christmas there in a few weeks.

All said I can’t say at this point whether I’d build again, or recommend it to others. It’s probably too fresh on my mind and has been a huge emotional strain this last year. We also had the unique experience of having friends build for us, which I’d say in our case worked mostly to our benefit. But we’re glad to have the “builder relationship” put to rest so we can resume being just friends again.

I will make a couple of observations though.

1. New houses aren’t perfect. They come with their own dents, dings, oversights, and idiosyncrasies.
2. Mixing friendship with business can work out, with lots of patience and understanding on both sides.
3. EVERYTHING can be fixed. So just because there is a huge hole in a wall 2 days before you move in, doesn’t mean you’ll ever know it was there on move-in day, so relax.
4. For some reason the frame inspection occurs well-after the frame is actually constructed. In fact I’m not sure how you would correct frame problems at the stage the frame inspection occurs. Fortunately we passed ours on the first try.
5. Our bank (Capital One) was amazingly flexible in just about every way and I highly recommend them.
6. We built for $86/ft in an area were new houses are selling for $115/ft+. WooHoo!

In all I probably worried and micromanaged way too much, as I’m prone to do. In a handful of cases, it paid off, sometimes in a big way, that we pointed out what hadn’t otherwise been seen by the contractors or builder. But in most cases, they already knew about the issue and were handling it.

We’re glad to have the construction process behind us and be moved in. We’ve felt somehow part of our life was on hold this past year and now we can let go of that feeling and turn our attention to other important things.

Passed Framing Inspection

// September 13th, 2006 // No Comments » // Life

Yes we are (still) building a house.

The project is now in it’s 13th month (since inception). It’s been 4 months since we broke ground. But this week arrived with good news — we passed our framing inspection. This is the biggest inspection hurdle of the entire process and we’re now passed it. Now the finish-out will pick up pace. We’re hoping we’ll be moved in by Thanksgiving and that the house we’re renting won’t sell before then.

We’re looking forward to seeing the actual space in which we’ll be living begin to take shape in the next month or so.

Slab Poured & Framing Started

// July 20th, 2006 // No Comments » // Life

Home-building isn’t for the faint-hearted. I’ll leave it at that..

We do have a slab now and yes, it seems small. We did get to see the framers lines drawn on the slab prior to framing and yes, the rooms also seem small. There’s really no way to get a true perspective of how things will look until it’s in 3-D.

The power company didn’t install the electrical pole properly so the framers couldn’t use it. Our builder got permission from one of our future neighbors to use their outside electrical outlets for a few days but the framers tools weren’t compatible (?) with the plugs. Our builder spent 3 hours on the phone with the power company until he got their commitment to come back and fix it within two days.

In the meantime, the framers had decided to just rent a generator and, though I haven’t visited, they should be on-site today and underway, unless of course they run out of gas on the way to the site, or have a tummy-ache, or a biblical flood interrupts our six rainless months and washes our slab away. Based on the past few months, I wouldn’t put any of those things past ‘ol Murphy.

Also, our landlord in the house we’re renting has put it up for sale. We’ve been assured we can stay as long as we need but as we’re on a month-to-month contract at this point, that for-sale sign out front looks more like a billboard sometimes, so the prospect of moving twice is looming.

Daily trips to the site aren’t recommended, but are almost irresistible. As long as it’s taken, we still take childlike joy at seeing the least bit of raw materials moved from one side of the lot to the other (“Ooh look! They repaired the erosion control! Wow!”).

For some time now, I’ve come to appreciate the joy of signing a six-inch stack of papers and driving the U-Haul to your already-built new place. This isn’t anything like that, not anything at all. It does have it’s moments of excitement, but it more resembles a starving man being thrown a cracker than anything else. It’ll all be worth it in the end though. I have faith in that.

We’re ready. We’re tired of living in someone else’s house.

We’re also blessed beyond measure, and we’re praying the delays will subside.

Construction Underway!!!

// May 27th, 2006 // No Comments » // Life

Last Thursday they began clearing our lot and laying the foundation forms. We’re so happy the building phase has finally begun.

It was exciting to walk around the forms and think about where things would be, what views would be like, etc.

We can’t wait to see it unfold.