A House on the Family Farm

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We're still in pause mode here in construction land. The finances are moving along, the ideas are still percolating, but we're on hold for the moment.

Once things start moving forward, I'll be back to posting here with unbridled enthusiasm.

Getting the Easement

Sometimes looking at the big picture can be really calming.

And sometimes looking at the big picture can really freak you out. Because you look at the end project and you think I'LL NEVER GET THERE! and then you curl up in the fetal position and eat chocolate and watch The Mentalist.

Or maybe you don't do that. Maybe that's just me.

But today I celebrate the small step: we got an easement across my parents' property in order to access our house. We knew all along that we'd need one, and we knew it wouldn't be tricky, but, um, WE HAD TO DO IT.

It involved writing up the easement in all sorts of legal jargon (my mom did this).

It involved my parents getting the legal easement notarized (my mom and my dad did this).

It involved going downtown Vancouver, up to the 2nd floor of some builder, finding the assessor, and dropping off the legal easement paper and paying $47 (I did this).

And it involved a babysitter to watch two adorable children whose antics may or may not put the assessor in a good mood (I didn't want to chance it; my parents watched the girls).

Done! Today! Hooray!

One more step. I celebrate the step. I will not freak out about the other steps I must take. One at a time, one at a time.

Determining a start date

Well, let's push that last post down a bit, shall we? I wouldn't say that my spirits are faring too much better, but today we are one day closer to breaking ground. We still aren't sure of what that date is, but regardless, we're one day closer. Glass half-full, right?

Right.

So, where are we at this point?

We met with our builder last week, and he's still good to go for a late-March start date. The new issue with that is that Jason is feeling less confident about the job market. Obviously, every one is feeling less confident about the job market, but it's only been the last couple months that the economy has started to effect teaching prospects for next year.

When state budgets need to be cut, then schools' budgets are cut. And when schools' budgets are cut, they usually aren't hiring a wealth of new teachers. I still think Jason has an excellent chance of getting a new job for next year because (1) he's a coach, (2) he's a male teacher in an area that's dominated by female teachers, and (3) he's a darn good teacher. I'm not worried, but Jason is.

However, let's be realistic and see that there is a possibility Jason won't have a job lined up for the fall. Taking this into account, we're thinking about pushing our start date back a month (to late April) so that the house will be finished several weeks after school starts (in late October). That way, if Jason doesn't have a job, we'll have a month or so to get another job lined up before our regular mortgage payments begin.

Pushing the start date back would be easy except for one little snag: our general contractor is moving away in July. Now, he has a co-worker who would assume the responsibilities of the project, and I suspect that all would be fine and dandy, but it does give us pause. Do we really want to have two general contractors working on the project? Should we start early so that we can have Eric--the one we've been wanting to build our house for more than a year--do most of the work? Or do we wait a bit, perhaps forcing us to find another GC who can be there for the whole project?

It's a lot to think about, and my parents definitely haven't held back on their opinions about the whole thing, putting a bit of extra tension in my life just for kicks.

 

I'll just daydream about taking a bath in my new tub, next to my fabulous square sinks, and hopefully that will ease some of the stress. Pass the bubble bath soap.

Ah, I feel better already.

Struggling

I thought I'd silently sneak in here to leave a few thoughts because they seem too out of place at my main blog.

Once upon a time, back when building a house seemed romantic and practical, I said to Jason, "I don't know why more people don't have houses custom built for them." While a custom house can be very expensive, it is considerably less expensive than if someone bought that house after it was finished. Of course, I realized that people don't have time to wait around for a house to be built. And sometimes people don't really even care if a house is custom built. And--in the true spirit of recycling and conservation--it's important that people buy the houses on that are currently on the market.

What I didn't consider then, but have since come face to face with is this: building a custom house is hard work.

Hard, hard work.

And we haven't even broke ground yet.

I wish every day that I could just give someone money to do all the work that I find myself constantly toiling over: getting permits, getting a construction loan, emailing our designer about putting the plot plan on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. Honestly, I would give money to someone, I just don't know who to give the money to. Who can do this job? I can't think of anyone doing it except me. I think in many situations the builder is the one who does all this, but he is just as unfamiliar with working in this county as I am. On top of that, he has a busy schedule too and can't be babysitting me as I fumble around with an armload of papers.

My true confession is that I am overwhelmed by all this. Even just today, as I spent an hour in the permit office whereby I discovered that there is still SO MUCH work left to do, I wanted to give up. There are moments in my life that my first reaction is to fight, but those moments tend to do with protecting my children. Mostly, my first reaction is to freeze, shut down, focus too much on the impossibilities of getting to the big picture instead of the more manageable tiny steps that get me farther down the path.

It's not that I'm at some sort of crossroads or anything. It's not like I actually won't do all the ridiculously complicated stuff that has to be done. It's just that every day that the project weighs on me is a day that I am disorganized, distracted, and discouraged.

I just want the house to be finished. And I'm hoping I'll still be sane when that happens.

Diningroom Dilemma

We are going to be lucky enough to have a large dining room. The floor space measures 12x16, with the hutch, buffet, and cabinets extending into the wall beyond that. That means we need a new dining room table.

I am seriously overjoyed at this prospect.

Well, overjoyed with the small dilemma of figuring out what to do with our existing dining room table that Jason's dad made us using wood from a tree that was originally on the family farm. But let's not trouble our discussion with that issue right now.

The real issue at hand is what dining room table to get.

I love this table from Pottery Barn:

 

It's large, and it's substantial, and those tension cables underneath are spectacular.

However.

The table top is made from distressed wood. See?

 

While it looks good, and will mask the million of teeny tiny marks Jules is going to put in the table, I have a small concern: will I be able to use the table top as a writing surface?

I have visions of writing a paper and then hitting a rut which would send my pen all scribbledy doo. This would be no good because I am quite certain that a great deal of writing and homework projects will be done at this table. But I'm torn, people, because I love this table. I do. How will I ever find a smooth table top with tension wires?

Anyone have experience with this kind of table? Too tricky for writing on? Worth the tricksy writing just to have the beautiful table?

Where Things Stand: End of September

I'm not so good about posting about the house progress, mostly because it seems like there is very little progress happening. However, I'm committing to posting once a week now. As someone who us rarely at a loss for words, I can always find something to write about!

Here's the update:

• We finally received permit plans at the end of August, so we are ready to get building permits. We decided to hold off on getting permits right away, because we weren't sure it we could put the basement in.
• Last week, we learned that we can't afford to put the basement in, so now we are waiting for a new set of engineered/permit plans.
• Since we held off on getting permits, and since we don't work well in "rush" mode, we have decided to put off breaking ground until next March. If everything had worked perfectly (and I didn't easily stress out) then we could have started in October. Starting later than that, though, meant starting during the rainy season, which is not so good when building a house. Therefore, we are starting in the spring. It still rains in March, and April, and May, and June, but there is some sunshine in there too. Hopefully.
• We are working hard to get everything submitted for final loan approval so we can lock in interest rates. It's imperative that we get the interest rate locked in before the election ends, since the rate will probably go up after election.
• Good news: rates are better now than they were a month ago (hooray for procrastinating). Even with all the Wall Street crisis, currently a construction-to-permanent loan goes for 6.125%.
• More good news: we didn't choose the now-failed bank Washington Mutual for our construction loan.
• Uncertain news: we did put all the proceeds from our house sale into a money market account with Washington Mutual. Hopefully they don't run off to Mexico with our money.

It's definitely uncertain times when it comes to new construction. Just yesterday, our loan officer told us that the federal government is considering putting a moratorium on all new (home) construction, particularly for states like Florida. Consider this: even if there was no new home construction in Florida, it would take 10 years to sell all the new homes that are available. Yipes.

All that to say, we are kind of operating on hold. Construction will start in the spring, and hopefully by then I will have everything picked out for the house so it'll be easy, breezy sailing.

Getting permits

Because it was such big news, I kind of forgot to write something on this little blog--a tangent of my regular one--about the house selling. In case there's someone who reads this blog and not my regular one, let me direct you to this post.

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The next step now is to get our house plans to the county for permits. We definitely have an advantage in getting permits because there isn't a lot of new construction going on, therefore making the county offices a bit desperate for work.

Last week I met with Todd, our designer, and it looks like he'll have a permit set of plans ready this week. Once we get permits we can really start moving on construction. It's weird how we had wanted to start building this summer, but then figured it wouldn't happen, and now we are doing a bit of scurrying around to get everything in order so that we can start the excavation.

It was cool seeing those final set of plans. Guess what? The bathroom is exactly like I wanted it. It took seven drafts and a bit of stubbornness on my part, but I finally got my way. Three compartments: one for sinks, one for the shower, and one for the toilet. I'm thrilled.

I'm hoping that by the end of September we will have started the excavation. Hooray!

Something

We had our first official house showing this past Tuesday. A realtor called at 10:50 am--right as I was running out the door to get my hair cut--to ask if he could bring clients by at 11:30.

We went into warp speed, cleaning up, vacuuming, and I had to leave before even everything was finished. Jason got the girls in the stroller and went for a walk as the people toured our house. Our house may not have been in perfect shape (I noticed the high chair could have been cleaner), but it was as good as it was going to get with 40 minutes notice.

I'm not sure how the house-showing went, but suffice to say there were no immediate offers. Of course, in this market, are there ever immediate offers? The most we can do is price our house right, have a realtor, and try not to break anything.

Another showing coming up this Tuesday. So. We'll see.

Until there is more to report, and because there is only so much writing that call fall under the "We Haven't Sold the House Yet" theme, I'll just post pictures of magazine tear pages that fill my files. It's a lot more fun to dream than despair, don't you think?

Not Even A Nibble

Our house has been for sale for three and a half weeks now, and we have had exactly ZERO phone calls about it.

I don't know how I feel about this.

I am surprised, I guess. Not surprised that it hasn't sold. Not surprised that there haven't been a flood of visitors parading through our house. I am, afterall, very aware of the housing market. But not even one realtor calling? I wasn't expecting that.

I am trying to be very "what will be will be" about the whole thing. Really, the only thing that makes me stressed at all is that pretty soon our general contractor's schedule will be opening up, and I know that our project--which he had lined up to follow directly after he finished what's he's currently working on--isn't going to be ready for him. This keeps me up at night, worrying about him and his family and potential lost income.

Beyond that, I think I'm handling it well. There's no rush to move up to Washington. We did hear this week that a new mortgage company has approved us to start building whenever we want, and even though this was news we had really been wanting to hear, it comes at a time when no one is interested in buying our house, so we still feel like we should wait before starting construction. We definitely don't want to get into the project, and then have to stop on account of our house not selling. That would be a nightmare.

So.

We wait.

I'm not so good at waiting.

House For Sale

Our house has been on the market now for a week, and we've been busy trying to get it in "showing" condition. Although there are still a few interior spots to paint (children have a way of dinging up the walls, don't they?), for the most part it's as good as it's going to get. Which isn't to say that it's perfect, but we're not going to put any more money into significant changes.

I know Jason's first choice would be to box up all unnecessary items up; I'm not at that point where I don't want our house to have that lived-in look. Jason is being a dear and allowing me to work through my emotions regarding the eventual move.

Hopefully by the end of the week, we'll have photo fliers in the House for Sale sign box, and that should help give people a better idea of what our house has to offer. If you're interested in a taking a peek at our house, I created a small House For Sale photo album. It's not as detailed as the Open House photo album I made a couple years ago, but it shows an updated version of our house, and most of the pictures are what will appear on our MLS listing (minus a few pictures I threw in there for fun).

Since we haven't had any action on the house, we can't quite tell if it's priced right. I know it's priced below what comparable houses are listed at, but those houses aren't selling either, so that's not a good indicator. By the end of the month we should be able to determine if the price is at least drawing people in to look. The market is unpredictable right now, so it's anybody's guess how long it'll take us to sell.