Wow, dirtdigging! You are really movin'. :o)

It's been 1 1/2 years and I can FINALLY post on one of these threads. We should close on our loan within the next few days. We went ahead and had the water & sewer taps done, got the work comp & liability insurance, and pulled our permits. *Happy dancing* I was expecting it to take much longer, but we turned everything in on a Thursday morning and had our permits on Monday afternoon.

Although I've posted pictures of our lot before they have much more meaning to me now since we're about to get busy. LOL

The winding driveway...

And where the house will be.....

And the house....

With the first floor layout....

I am going to have paint on the walls in a few days (yeppie), and will post photo's then.

persnick, I love your house and that great floor plan. Your house is going to be beautiful.

I second Brutuses' opinion, Persnicketydesign. Love the lot, love the floorplan and elevation. Very nice!

Some of you may have seen my post that we passed our final inspection last week. We are having our appraisal Monday and are trying to get as much more finished as we can before then. Thankfully, the bank, with which we have a 23 year history, is letting us get by with some of the 'cosmetics' not yet complete, like window trim, backsplashes, cabinet paint, etc. We'll be lucky to have all the cabinet doors hung, just so she can get an idea of what it's going to look like. After that comes the mobile home demolition...Has to be done within 30 days of the final. Everyone is looking forward to that event!

Persnicketydesign, beautiful lot and plan, excited I bet!?

dirtdigging101, WOW - shows it can be done pretty fast! Our last house took a year from the time they broke ground S*L*O*W! We broke ground around the same time as you (Nov. 16) and they are putting the final coat of mud on the drywall. Move in date is expected to be around May 20th.

Brutuse, if I recall you started in Nov too?

rhome410, you must be so ready to move! Our last home we built (just little over a year ago!!) we lived on site for the last 6 months in our motor home. I was SO READY to get out of there. Now I am still tired of it, and want to sell it - DH won't.

Can't wait to see every-one's pictures! Would you believe - I have not taken ANY photo's of this house!?

Anyone feel they made some mistakes? I know I did already (not enough planning time, we rushed into this build). I changed my paint color for the exterior the last minute. I am not liking the color at all, AND I forgot to change the soffit color - and don't like that at all either! Inside - there are several I wish I did this or that...

my builder thinks he is at least 3 weeks behind on my house, likely pressure from the boss above as they build n their money closing is usually 5 days after CO. final grading is holding most things up right now
their guy is very busy and then the weather thing

1st coat of paint is up on all walls and they're installing crown molding! Final electrical inspection is this Wednesday...travertine and tile is being laid in bathrooms and laundry room and THEN the wood floors next week! We're still not looking to move in until the school year ends...but it's all coming together.

I am a relatively new poster to this site. We broke ground on January 28th in Colorado. The foundation has been poured and and they are working on the rough plumbing and will pour the basement slab this week. Well is in and water line to the house has been dug and septic is in. We're told August the house should be completed but we'll see...

dirt digging- WOW was that fast! My head would be spinning-great job!

Persnickity - lovely home, lovely lot. It looks like our area- are you building in the Midwest? Those look like Midwestern or maybe Northeastern trees!

Rhome - what fun to see the mobile home go! We are tearing down our old home.... won't be for a few months but it should be an event.

Well we are moving in! We broke ground May 2nd. We have not had a final inspection- our whole situation with the bank is a bit wonky. The bank changed hands in midstream and it seems like most of the construction lending folks are more worried about actually keeping their jobs than doing their jobs at this point. I don't know when/if we will have a final inspection. It's supposed to be in the works but hasn't happened or been schedules. Since we already live on site we have started moving. My MIL is moving in with us and she moved in last weekend. We still have some finish work to do inside and a fair amount of work outside that will have to wait for better weather.

Ironically we have the "perfect" home to move into with a moving van/truck. You can literally back righ up to the covered porch. put the ramp down and be at the front door with spacious entry etc. Of course since we are only moving 100 feet..... no moving van! So we have 100 feet of snow and ice right now which will become 100 feet of mud soon. We are taking our time. I started moving my kitchen and the kids clothes yesterday- moved all the dirty clothes and did laundry in record time in my new washer/dryer!

I will post more pics when we are all moved in.

The kitchen

The Pink Palace - my 6 yr olds room

The living room

THe staircase still in progress

tinker, I started 4, almost 5 years ago!! My husband built the majority of the house himself as we couldn't afford to pay a GC to come in to build the entire house. We are in the last leg now and getting really excited. For so long it just seemed to be a "dream" but now it's actually becoming reality for us.

To those of you getting dismayed by the length of time it takes to build your home, just keep me in mind!! It's a long journey, but it will be so worth it at the end. We just hope we live to see it completed and live long enough to enjoy it. LOL

We are waiting for the plumber to finish the rough-ins and by the end of the week, they should be here to wrap the house and start the siding.

I am guessing insulation will be next. It will be 6 months on March 15. We were hoping to be moved in by APril 15 but the weather has not been cooperating!

Looking forward to the end!

*** ponydoc *** - your house looks fabulous! Do you know what type of carpet (Brand, etc) is in the "pink palace"? I really like the look, althought I might have to pick a different color, lol!

I love it! People are really moving along!

persnicketydesign, Your plans and lot look like they are going to be lovely. What an exciting time for you.

rhome410 and ponydoc, Very excited that both of you are getting so close to being done.

We are crawling along... I've been out of town for 2 weeks so I just drove out to the lot early this morning. It was excruciating to have been away for so long, however, there was lots of progress.

For those of you waiting for Nichiha siding pictures, we are close! I was hoping to have some to share today, but the siding is still sitting on pallets in the back yard. Hopefully later this week...

Things that were done... HVAC and plumbing rough in look complete. I'd say the electricians are 75% done with rough in. We finally have a basement floor. It took us a long time to get the house warm enough and dry enough to pour. However, with a basement floor, we could finally frame the basement, install the fireplace there and now I can pull the low voltage wiring on that level.

Our front door was in, but not much to look at since it was just the sidelights and an ugly (but functional) bang door.

The base for our decks were on the back of the house and the roof was almost done.

Here are a couple pictures... Hopefully drywall will go up late next week and we can start on finish work.

Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragment, everyone. I've been watching all of your builds since they started and can't tell you how much your posts have helped us along the way so far. Thanks for sharing.

Ponydoc...it's looking fantastic!!! Your clutter room still has me green with envy (almost the shade of your den). :o) We're actually in the suburbs of Augusta, GA.

Jaymielo...Can't wait to see the Nichiha. Are you using pre-stained or primed & painted? We'll be using the painted Nichiha shakes on the entire exterior of the house. When we've told people that we're using all shakes you can actually see the question marks floating above their heads. LOL

persnicketydesign We are using the pre-stained shake in mahogany. It will also be on the entire exterior of our house, except for stone accents on the chase and the very front section. We get the same reaction here when we talk about the siding, so we are super excited to see it go on. Our GC was very impressed with the sturdiness of the product when it was delivered to the site. We are hoping they are as impressed as they begin installation and that we don't run into any problems. Our GC is aware that the siding sticks out further than the Hardie product when installed and the trim needs to be adjusted to account for that. We have our fingers crossed there aren't any other unknowns that cause us any undue stress.

I'm still loving that floor so much ponydoc!

We've gotten a lot done in the last month. I chose tiles for the main floor bath and entry way and installed then in the bathroom. I kerdi-ed and tiled the shower by the "mudroom" entrance bathroom. We have pine on many of the walls with some left to go. Pine on vaulted ceilings in up but not varnished yet. I'm dreading that project. We have all of the drywall up and the mudding started. Will finish that Monday. We have the window trim on all the windows in completed walls. Floors are down in 2 rooms on the mainfloor (they were always in upstairs b/c they are structural). I guess I'm listing these backwards but we got our vapour barrier inspection this month. My appliances arrived 2 weeks early! We got the pump and hot water heater in and electrical inspection and power on so we have running water now. We've started packing up our belongings and moving them to the basement of the new house.

We're out of our current house at the end of March so regardless of the state of the new house we will be moving in. Practically speaking, we expect to have a functional kitchen but no cabinets. We'll have a fully completed main level bath with shower but the upstairs bath will be totally empty. We'll have bedroom walls done but trim may not be in place. Main floor will be finished as far as walls and windows go. Doors may not be up b/c they aren't made yet.

Oh, I almost forgot. DH thinks there is a mouse in the new house and so our cat moved 2 weeks ago. He's loving having the place to himself and not having his every move watched by the dogs.

Here's a pine wall and vaulted ceiling in my son's room.

And the trimmed windows and walls in the living room.

Wow!!! everyone seems to be moving along, everyone but me that is. We have just finished rough, plumbing, heating and ac duct work, rough electrical should be done today. Tyvek should be done today then the cedar siding.

Insulation will happen after the inspectors sign off, but DH has decided he wants blown-in insulation, which means we are now back to getting bids. I just have to be patient as this is our forever house and we only want to do it once.

Feb was a good month for us.

1. Permits issued.
2. Lot cleared.
3. Sign saying "Future home of Ron & Margy" erected.
4. Well dug (40 GPM).
5. We've picked out the exterior stone/stucco

This week they are going to have the surveyor out to fix the floor levels and start on the footings.

Here is a link that might be useful: HOUSE PAGE

So far...the insulation is finished, walls are drywalled and spackled, the garage door is installed, the siding is started and should be done this week. The inside is now ready for paint. Just have to wait for DH to finish the HVAC and the utilites to be connected. We're moving right along!

House blog: http://www.farhouse.blogspot.com

I apologize for not having the paint photo's I promised. DH told painter "no rush" so painter went to another job. I went to the house expecting to see painted walls and all I saw were primed ones!! LOL

well we have our electric pole up and it passed inspection yesterday, we are waiting on them to put the water meter in, the builder has spray painted the ground of where the house will be sitting, we went by to see it yesterday and it looks so small, but everyone says that is normal, the house should be somewhere around 3,000 sq ft. and it looks like the size of a trailer right now, but we talked to the builder last night and he says not to worry. We are now just waiting for the builder to pick up our building permit and we will be ready to go, oh and for the ground to get a little dryer, of all times it starts to rain quite frequently around here! Hopefully we will begin at least by next begining of the week.

We are DONE and IN! My official done day was February 23rd, 9 months, 25 days including the end date from the start of digging the foundation. We are in love! I haven't decided on where everything is going yet, I have a ton of stuff on top of counters, but we are living amongst it all.

I am going to start a review of each room on my blog. In fact, I started with the mudroom and laundry a few days ago.

Here is a link that might be useful: My blog

We are putting in tile for the showers. Wood floors,carpet and tile are waiting on the showers. The trenching is all done for the electricity and phone!! Water tanks are going in soon, septic is on the way and we are buying a trailer to sleep in so that I can sleep not worrying about being ripped off. The granite counters went in last week and we're really looking like a home. I'm holding myself off from ripping the plastic off the doors and windows to see what the house will look like with light coming in!!! The hills are green and we can see the wildflowers appreciating all the rain in So Cal!!
Yahoo!! I told my landlord (sold our other home in August) that I'll be giving notice in the next 2 to 4 weeks. I can hardly wait!!!!

Architectural plans are now done and will be submitted to Structural engineer. We are listing our house for sale here Hope to sell it for a certain amount so we can build the next one. Lived here for 25 years now so not sure what it is really worth yet.

Guess we are hitting the market at a bad time so I hope we can get enough to be able to build the next one. We already own the land for our new home and DON'T have to sell yet, but sure hope that we can. My DH says we will need a certain amount in order to build the next one.

So wish us luck!

Are any of you trying to sell your current home at the same time you are building?

Oh to be able to post here finally! We've taken the first step!
We have given our prospective builder our plans, spreadsheets for each room, drawings and layouts of custom carpentry, pictures and notes, etc. He gave us a preliminary verbal ballpark price range, the top of which is $50,000 lower than what we thought the house would come in at its lowest. (Shhhhhhhh.... ) YOWSER! So now the wait while he cranks out a concrete price.
~Jodie

We're done with all our planning. I pick up the permit today. The bank has our application. We should close near the end of March and start building in early April.

Seawall has been replaced. Dock and boat lift are in. Permits were applied for last week. We are going to Home Expo today or next Friday to finish our "inspiration" shopping for kitchen, baths and so on. Soon after, we will be finalizing decisions on cabinets, granite, and stairs. Tile has been chosen, though we are still exploring our options on bathrooms.

We are here on this site almost every day, and have learned so much from all of you.

:)

Barbara

all of a sudden our contractor has decided our house will be done friday the 14 of march so 122 days. thursday about 6 different contractors were in and out of there
and this weekend the hardwood floors are being finished in place

next weel the site forman says he will be on site every day to close the home out

ok ok they are having an open house sat the 15 to show what they can do and drumm us salesw
got water and sewwer today so u can no offically flush the toilet

OK, I know this isn't much to be excited about for some of you, but for me, waiting almost 5 years to see this, it's real exciting. It's the first coat of paint in the great room/kitchen in BM's Rich Creme. Sorry there is only one photo. DH had camera set on wrong setting and others come out blurred. Hopefully other rooms will be painted this coming week. At least I hope so. Click on photo to enlarge.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to photo

Looks wonderful, Brutuses! The house starts to take on personality with the paint.

We had our house on the market last summer while we were building and we sold it, which was a really good thing because the market has tanked where I live. I'm very relieved to have it gone. It's not fun to move twice, but I prefer the alternative, which is two house payments.

We finally had our slab poured for the basement and garage on Monday, March 3 (broke ground Oct. 29). We had to wait for the just the right confluence of temperature and predicted rainfall. DH thinks that we got lucky, and the results look good. Opted for the inclusion of ?fibers in cement mix for added structural integrity, and sealant. Our BluWood delivery #2 arrived, so we hope to begin framing, soon...relatively speaking.
Finalized window (wood interior/red aluminum clad casement), French doors, and red metal roofing selections.
Now struggling with choices on faucets, counters, vanity tops, sinks, and showers. This is mind-boggling, but my sister tells me that once we get to lighting choices, we will look back fondly on these simpler times. Oh, boy!

well, as of today we are doing soil testing (again) to figure placement on our septic and well. we fired the first engineer and hoping all goes better this time around. we're having a tough time as our lot seems to have a lot of clay. it's driving me mad, that on a three acre lot we can't find good soil. this isn't what i want to complain about. i want to complain about the wrong tile coming in, or how the guys pouring the foundation smell. if i'm lucky, all in good time. i have agada.

I'm so excited to be posting on this thread.

Our plans are finished, engineering should be finished tomorrow, site plan is completed, and the septic design is being submitted to the HD today or tomorrow. We found a local bank willing to finance an owner/builder home. We have a meeting on Friday w/ a builder willing to act as a consultant. I'm not sure if we need one, though.

Hopefully, we'll apply for permits next week. Then, we'll focus on bids. The goal is to have all the bids back, contractors chosen, building schedule completed, and financing in place when the permits are issued (approx 10 weeks). I don't know whether we can prepare the site prior to issued permits so I need to look into that as well.

I can't wait to break ground.

Where are we at??? Not at all where we'd like to be (which is moved in months ago). The good news is we're starting to see the light at the end of the deep dark tunnel. Just today the town approved the additional steel needed to compensate for original contractors MISTAKE (long story). And the bank says we will finally get a draw this week (we haven't had a bank draw since October due to contractor change and jumping through 100's of hoops to get new contractor on board). Really don't like our bank. Anyway, here are some recent pictures. Unfortunately they don't look much different from the past two months of "Where are u at" posts. Hopefully next month will show some serious progress.
This is the front of the house

Front of house with detached 3 car tandem garage in background

Back of house (with clutter and pool fence)

ehoops,

So glad to hear that you are finally making forward progress. Congratulations on jumping through all the bank and city hoops and here's to a stressless remaining build. j.

Hoping to close NEXT Friday!

http://canterbury-lane-tales.blogspot.com/

Jaymielo-
Thanks! Not sure we'll have a "stressless remaining build" but it sure would be nice. Maybe we just put all the stress into the first half and we'll breeze through the second. One can wish. :)

I finally have photo's of the paint colors on the walls. Unfortunately they didn't all come out real well. It's difficult to get good shots when there is no inside light, only outside light. Hope you enjoy.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to photo's

Shoot, brutuses, I can't get in!

Darn. If you want to e-mail me I'll be glad to send them that route which might make a difference in you being able to view them.

I think I have someone who is going to teach me how to get my photo's into photobucket using the new software and then I won't have to deal with this silly "snapfish."

We're framing! Had planned to be at this stage mid-February, but monther nature had other ideas and set up back a few time. So exciting to see the "walls" going up.

Here ya go happykate, I accidentally was able to get my photo's into my photobuckt account. So now you can view them. I apologize, the colors, except for the Rich Creme, didn't really come out as nice as they are in real life. In any event, this is it for now. Enjoy!!

BM's Rich Creme - Great room looking into pantry (r) and laundry (l) Far left is foyer that we haven't painted yet.

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BM Yorkshire Tan - Painted walls and ceiling same, but color is so distorted that he has the ceiling looking like an entirely different color and darker than the walls.

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BM Nantucket Gray - Office

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SW Silver Mist mixed by BM - Master Bedroom looking in Master bath that is BM Gray Cashmere

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2nd. bedroom is RH's Silver Sage cutom mixed by BM. It was so dark the photo wasn't worth posting.

Hopefully I'll be able to get nicer shots as time goes on when all the white moldings and trims are in place.

Thanks, brutusus  those are worth the posting trouble, for sure! Love the Rrrrrrrrich Cream; we're looking for a good gray, and will certainly check out the Gray Cashmere.