Odds 'n' Ends

I haven't updated this for a little while, but we continue to take many tiny steps toward getting this project started.

Last week Christina and I finally got out and visited a couple of the building supply warehouses. Service was hit-and-miss but we were able to get a lot of brochures (too many) and some helpful information.

Shingles should be fairly straightforward. Have a couple brands to choose from, we'll just need to pick a color to match our other choices. For siding we still need to check out the color and texture options for seamless steel. We should get more samples for that this week. We saw some really nice cedar-colored vinyl shakes that we will probably go with.

We finally got a live look at our window choice (Marvin Integrity) and were able to make some minor decisions regarding those. We decided for the windows with grills, we will change our style choice. Instead of  the grills that go between the glass, we will go with a style with grills on either side of the glass. This way the interior grills can be stained to match the rest of the window. Otherwise they would be white on the interior. We also concluded that we want to go with double french doors upstairs and downstairs on the deck side of the house. originally we had planed to go with a single door paired with a fixed door.

We visited the place that supplies stone for the exterior stonework. Wow there are just way too many choices.

Our expert color coordinator (Christina's sister Randina) sent us some pictures of some exteriors she liked. We are tentatively using this one as the look we are going for:

On the paperwork front, we are meeting with an insurance agent tomorrow morning to get a policy in place for the construction period. Then, next Thursday (the 29th) we actually close on our loan. That will feel like an important milestone! probably because we have to cut the bank a huge check..yippee!

Our contact on the builder front, Mark Sams, stopped by yesterday to have me sign the paperwork for MN power to fun electric back to the property. We chatted about a bunch of stuff, but the best news is that he expects the road restrictions to come off sometime around mother's day (May 9th)! If that happens, we would expect work to begin on our house sometime that week or the week after. It's getting closer!!!

This past weekend we were able to drive out to the land with the boys and spend a little time there. No sooner had we opened the doors to the truck, our resident daredevil Tommy took off across the dirt covered field in search of adventure. What do you do when you see a big pile of dirt? Well, climb up it and jump off of course! Then don't forget to take your sunglasses off and use them to dig at the ground creating your own little dust cloud!

A couple pictures from our stop:

Here is a side shot of what hopefully will be a good sliding hill on the corner of our backyard. I think the first thing we will need to install is a good old fashioned fire pit:

This is a shot from what is probably the top of the sliding hill back toward the house. Some of the trees on the left will probably get cleared out as we need to clear more trees to make a reasonable backyard:

This is a view from the SE corner of the backyard back toward the driveway entrance. The dirt pile is the remnants of a burn pile from when the land was initially cleared.

What do you do with a dirt pile? Climb it of course:

Jedi Master:

And on a final note for today, I must announce that Christina became the first person in the family to "catch" a wood tick at our land. I was very jealous when she told me she found the little guy making himself cozy buried in her thick hair. Maybe when Andy and I go camp out at the land I can acquire one or two if I am lucky!

Spring is here

It's been an unseasonably warm early spring, which has contributed to me being lax in updating this blog. Well, that and having a toddler around, having Christina gone for board exams, beginning to fret about exterior colors, attending to other important things (such as hobbies) and just general laziness.

So what has been going on since the last update?

The ball continues to roll with the bank. The appraisal came back a little lower due to the square footage dropping, but nothing that will stop our progress. Seems like every 2-3 days something new comes from the bank that we need to sign. But so far, so good!

Jamie has provided us with a selection sheet, and some sample materials and catalogs. Top priority right now is exterior stuff (siding color, stone, gutters, fascia, shingles, windows, etc). We've done a little bit of reading, and Christina stopped by the stone contractors store too. But most of this selection stuff will begin in earnest after we get back form our spring break mini-vacation next week.

The boys and I picked up Subways and drove out to the land yesterday for a little picnic. We walked around a little bit and I think we are going to have a decent sliding hill just off the back of our backyard. Mark says we might have to clear some more trees from the south of the lot (the backyard) to get the grade to where he wants it for a walkout basement. If so, we'll end up with a bigger backyard (good) that should border up against the top of the sliding hill! First priority will be to build a fit pit right at the top of that hill for sure!

The time is nearing that we will be closing on the construction loan and officially beginning work. Can't wait!

Here's some pictures form the picnic day:

Picnic in the truck (ground still a little muddy):


Looking SE from approximately the location of the garage apron. Cleared area is the side yard to the east of the house:


A couple shots looking east from approximate garage apron location, showing the final driveway approach after it turns onto the land:



Dad! The sun is too bright!

Under contract once again!

Three months after our original plans fell apart, we are under contract again!

After some final tweaking of the contract to drop the bid to a more "friendly" amount, the Sams stopped by today and we made it official! We moved some of the expenses to an "addendum" so that the official bank bid was lower...therfore lessening the amount we will have to come up with to put the loan in place. I gathered up (again!) all the financial information the bank needed to go through this process (again!) and e-mailed it on its merry way today. Hope no snags come up!

The things we moved out of the official bid were the great room ceiling beams, appliances, some of the hardwood floor allowance, and some of the stone allowance. This is all stuff we will pay for out of pocket as we go, but now we don't have to give that money to the bank before the project even starts. The appliances and flooring we could even put on no-interest financing with the stores if we want. The beams we will definitely still do. The stone allowance was going to drop anyway since we are pulling back on how much we are putting on the exterior of the house. We are going to be paying for this stuff out of pocket either way, but this way we can do it over the next 12 months instead of in April.

Mark or Jamie will be dropping off selection materials soon for the choices we need to make first (siding, shingles, etc). They also suggested meeting with their cabinet guy soon. He's the one they are suggesting does all the cabinetry work in the house (kitchen, built-ins, bar, etc). We also told Heather to go ahead and produce real full size blueprints.

Feels good to be at this point!

Quick turnaround again on revised plans

Well that took just a couple hours...already have revised plans in my email. Here they are:

Main Floor:

Lower Floor:

Garage:

Front Elevation:

Rear Elevation:

Side Elevation 1 (part of approaching view from driveway):

Side Elevation 2:

A new bid, and yet more proposed changes

Been a little while since I posted but it feels like a lot has happened.

On Wednesday 2/24, we met with Mark and Jamie to go over the revised bid based on the changes we made. We had really hoped that the changes we made would reduce the cost quite a bit (dropping the vault size, reducing the beamwork, dropping tongue-and-groove, squaring up the garage, etc). However, some other things crept in that pretty much canceled out that gain.

For one thing, they did a detailed look at the site and realized we were going to need some more excavation that we thought to pull off the walkout. Also, with the changes we made, we actually ended up with a little more foundation, and more deck than the original bid. So when it boils down to it, we are at about the same number. We can make it work, and there are some things we can tweak to bring down the cost.

OK enough of that talk...we spent some time pouring over the plans and making changes. Feels like we have done this 100 times over the last few months. At first it was fun, but we are really ready to move on to the next step of actually building this thing and picking stuff out. This will be long, but its easiest for me just to cut-and-paste the email I sent the designer explaining our proposed changes. If you see anything stupid, please say so!

MAIN LEVEL:

1. Bedroom 2 & “Hers” Office: Move the small south facing windows “in” toward the east slightly. Enough to leave about 2’ of space on the south walls between the windows and the corner. Reason here is that opens up the corner for something like a bookcase or toy chest.

2. Bedroom 3: Instead of 2 smaller closets, make one large 8’ closet and move the door east to the corner. (unless you have a better idea for this room, we couldn’t come up with anything else) We thought the double closet was more that needed and reducing it and moving the door over opened up just a little more room space.

3. Master Bath: We’ve been debating shower size and arrangement and here is what we have come up with. not sure how feasible this is. Want to end up with a fairly “enclosed” shower of about 3 ½ by 4 ft. Want to move the north wall of the toilet area more south. In my drawing I’ve taken away a some of the wall “jutting” out to the north of the fireplace, allowing the toilet area to shift south a foot or so. That gives us more room to play with for the shower, and would allow the arrangement pictured in attached plan sketch. Entrances would be narrow (I was thinking 20 inches?) to help hold in the heat (we are planning no shower door). This also puts a small linen closet back in the bathroom.

4. All non-walk-in closets need to have 2’ interior depth (applies to lower level too). From the look of the plans this is probably true.

LOWER LEVEL:

1. Rec Room: move the window to the west in order to center it on the exposed interior wall. Think this will look better from the inside. Realize this will result in window not being centered on the exterior, but its under the deck and rear facing anyway.

2. Bedroom 4: Move door east to corner of room

3. “His” Office: move closet to north end of room, recessed into mech room. Lengthen to 8 feet. Flip entrance door to office to open into the south wall.

4. Put a utility sink the Mech room

5. “Hers” office move window over (as mentioned above)

GARAGE:

1. Return the storage stairs back to previous design. This also moves the entrance to the house back to previous location, and puts mud room back to the prior configuration as well. Place the stairs as far right (west) as possible while avoiding having the two doors (storage access and back door) conflict with each other. Have them open as pictured in diagram.

2. Change stairs leading from house to garage to simply step down walking northward, instead of having the large platform.

3. Move the east door on the garage back to its location nearer to the house entrance. Leave 3 feet of space between the door and the south garage wall to accommodate garbage/recycling cans in that corner.

4. leave utility sink under the storage stairs…close to the entry door for enough clearance.

5. Place a window centered on the south wall of the workshop. We are thinking a rectangular awning window about head-high so you can see out of it. Nothing huge…enough to let in some light on the south facing wall. Maybe 3 feet wide or so.

6. Move the door leading from the main garage to the workshop a little further north…far enough so there is 3 feet of wall space on the diving wall between the door and the south end of the garage. This will allow for ample storage area on that south wall.

7. Still talking about that same door to the workshop. Is there such thing as a slider and/or pocket door we could put here? If not, I would have the door open as pictured in attached sketch.

8. Clarification on the workshop big garage door…the plans say “9’x10’ door, but it’s actually 10 feet wide, 8’ tall right?

MAIN FLOOR CHANGES:

LOWER LEVEL CHANGES:

GARAGE CHANGES:

New Plans (version 3) are already in our hands!

Well you can't complain about a 12 hour turnaround from your designer! Heather sent us these updated plans this morning.

This is very very close. Some things we need to think about are:

• Guest bedroom door/closet configuration. I don't really like the door in the middle, but Heather moved it there to not conflict with the closet door.
  
• Configuration of garage stairs to the storage attic. This new design forces a change to the mud room flow so we'll probably go back to the other option (flip the stairs around and have the access door facing the workshop)
  
• closet in Boys Town ("His Office") is kinda clumsy
• additional window in Andy's bedroom (bedroom 2) takes away from wall space...but it gives him a south facing window.
• Still undecided on the Rec Room window....right now its centered on the entire room, but its right up against the fireplace, with empty wall on the other side. We cant decide if that will look dumb or not.
• Wondering if it would be wise to put a window in the south wall of the workshop for some natural light.
  

Main Level:

Lower Level:

Garage:

Yet more tweaks, changes, and excrutiating detail

It seems like its been a week since we got the last revision of the plans, yet its been less than 48 hours. We've been pouring over these things, making final measurements of things like exercise equipment and tables saws, and trying our best to make sure things fit where we want them too. Here's some sketches and the bullet-point feedback we sent to the designer:

Feedback:

Downstairs

• Remove “Toy Storage” closets, give that room back to the Game Room.
• Shrink the width of both the Exercise room and the Guest room by 1’6”. Give that width to the two offices instead.
• “Flip Flop” the Her Office and Guest Room closets. Instead of closets being equal size, give more space to the office closet (about 4 feet wide for Guest is enough). Can we pocket door the guest closet? Might make more sense since its behind the entry door.
• Extend the Exercise Room and His Office two feet into the Mechanical Room (I’m assuming a 10’ wide mechanical room is enough room)
• Want to add a closet to “His” Office. Best idea I can come up with is on the south wall…but don’t cramp the door too much. I think about 7 feet wide would be good. I’m open to other ideas.
• On north end of Rec Room (by card table) extend out foundation enough to create a 2 foot interior depth closet in the “nook” created by upstairs bathtub)
• Question: what to do about rec room window. Right now its centered on the exterior wall, but not centered on the interior “exposed” wall.
• Removed arched soffit from plans.

Upstairs

• Put prep sink in middle of kitchen island. Move dishwasher to left of sink. Right of sink will have pull out cabinet with garbage/recycling bins.
• In kids bathroom: leave size of room and vanity the same, go down to 1 sink with room for small built in line/storage cabinet in corner.
• Bedroom 2: add small window on the south wall (same as in the Hers Office below).
• Master bath: put a window facing east in the wall (not in the corner above the tub…in the blank wall). Same size as the master bedroom windows.
• Pocket door entrance to mud room if possible (don’t move anything around to accommodate this)
• Give 6 inches of space from the pantry to the mud room.

Garage

• Put 10 foot garage door on workshop. Place the door closer to the dividing wall (want parking spot to be far enough left (east) in order to be able to have room for workbench/table saw/etc on right (west) wall. (will this look silly from front view?)
• Did the stairs to the storage area change direction for a reason? If not let’s put them back so the door is by the house entrance.
• Plan for a utility sink in the garage. If the stairs up change back to the original design, I think the sink would go to the left (east) of the garage back door

New Downstairs Sketch:

Upstairs changes:

Downstairs changes: