From the first time we saw our lot, we always had to imagine what our final view would actually look like. There were so many trees, it was hard to even see anything beyond them. We knew the mountain range was out there and occasionally we’d catch a glimpse of Lion’s Head through the trees…
The water well to China
Now that the driveway finally provides access to our lot for big machinery, we are able to start drilling for mountain gold – otherwise known as water. James Drilling moved in their equipment in preparation to start drilling when they had an unexpected mechanical failure. It took a few days to get the parts they…
Holy driveway, Batman
Shortly after we signed our construction contract, the excavator was pulling up to our lot to put in the driveway. They spent a day clearing out the trees in the path of the new driveway and then spent the next couple of weeks hauling in dirt – literally tons of dirt. Today, we finally got…
Closing the loan
Well, the loan closing wasn’t nearly as drama free as we had hoped. We were originally supposed to close on the 15th of March, but our date kept getting pushed back while they worked through the final numbers. When we finally received what was supposed to be our 3-day closing disclosure the critical details were…
Two steps forward, one step back
It has been a crazy 5 weeks of ups and downs. We kicked off February with getting the lot staked and having the forester mark all of the trees that need to come down to create a defensible space around our property for firefighters. It felt like we were making real progress. Then we started…
This is where the house will be built
We had Evergreen Surveying come out to our lot to stake the corners of the house in preparation for the forester to mark the trees that need to be removed. It was exciting to finally see where the house will actually be built on the lot. We’ve always known the general area and had a…
Foundation surprise
Just on the heels of the good news that our appraisal came in where it needed to be, I received an email about an issue with our foundation walls from the engineers. It turns out, the way the house was placed on the lot was going to require a 15 foot foundation wall in one…
Drum roll please – the appraisal is in
Our appraisal finally came in today and now we can let out a big sigh of relief because the value was right where we needed it to be. We heard a number of horror stories about appraisals coming in lower than the construction costs so we were waiting on pins and needles for the appraisal…
A meeting of the minds on structural engineering
We had a meeting of the minds today at the DLK Engineering offices. Dana wanted to share his initial structural plans with the team to answer some outstanding questions and go over a few options we have for the roof over the great room. Dan from Best Custom Homes and Deb from Caribou Ridge Architecture…