We have a basement and first floor framing!

It's been a busy few weeks and I have not been as good as I hoped updating this blog :( Sorry!
However, the basement was poured and the basement slab was finished earlier this week. On Wednesday the lumber package was delivered and the framing crew was able to get started. Talk about fast work! They had the basement walls all framed out by 3 pm on Wednesday and the lumber package had gotten delivered that day. Yes, you read that right, a WHOLE basement framed out in just a few hours! It is finally getting real. Silly, I know, but until you start to see the bones of the house coming together, it is still just a concept. Wednesday when we arrived at the site really seemed like this "concept" was quickly becoming a reality. I got butterflies in my stomach just approaching the site but they were the good kind :)

We have floor joists and a lumber package!

Greg and I walked in through the basement garage door and were impressed to see they had the garage bay, the bathroom and main living area all framed in correctly. However, we had asked for another area in the basement to be open concept with a large beam and this section was not done right. Talk about angry. Greg was super upset! Our real estate agent was with us and she told us to just keep calling our builder to get the issue addressed. Finally, Greg also went and talked with the crew leader and told him what we wanted. He said it would be no problem to address this and he would order the beam and have it next week to install. Whew! Crisis averted :)

 

 Open concept living room in the basement.

 

 Above is the part that was supposed to be open as well. New beam coming this week :)

Future basement bathroom. This is gonna be huge. One day I will get my huge soaking tub!

Greg and I did not go out on Thursday since it rained a bit and they could not work. Then on Friday we had to go out of town with a group of his friends/co-workers. So we went to the site on Saturday evening on our way back into Knoxville. Boy were we surprised! They had accomplished tons but to our chagrin there were several mistakes! Isn't the reason we have a general contractor, so that mistakes are kept to a minimum? Especially considering he gave us plans last week and asked us to put all of our framing changes etc. on the plans and then get them back to him. We did just that and it was like he didn't even look at them or come out and let the framers know. No fault of the framers, they are just going off the original plans and the house they just did for our builder on Wallace Rd. A blessing and a curse that is turning out to be for us. Blessing because we got to see their build pretty much start to finish but a curse because we have made changes and it seems our builder has not told his subs yet. Well that sucks for him, because they sure will have to fix it. Some of the changes are actually contractual and others are what he actually bid on when he quoted us for the house. Greg was beyond angry when he saw the mistakes. Mainly the mistakes were in the kitchen and the laundry room. However, they were big mistakes and we did let the builder know that we needed to meet with him this week to address these. We knew there would arise some issues, but we didn't expect them right out the gate. So fingers crossed we can get them fixed this week. Otherwise I am going to have one upset hubby on my hands! I have faith though, its all going to work out just fine. Sometimes in order to know how lucky you are, you do have to have a few problems. The problems let you appreciate how truly fortunate you are. I am going to see these problems as a reminder to be grateful. We after all are building the dream and should be reminded of that :)

Breaking Ground!

So yesterday was a great day because they started breaking ground! Yay! I was busy during the morning and afternoon so I wasn't able to go out to the site until mid afternoon. Greg on the other hand was out there twice and talked with the excavator. The excavator was very pleased with the lot and said that we had really hard ground so he wasn't having to dig so deep in order to hit good ground. Greg was really excited to hear that. Apparently that is a good thing. Also, so far it looks like the driveway will not be nearly as steep as our builder had told us. We are glad to hear that.

Greg and I went together tonight to check out the site and take some pictures.  Our driveway will kind of come across part of the front of the lot and then turn into the garage. We were really bummed that we were not getting the three car garage, but we are getting a bigger cement pad so hopefully it will be ok. Here is the driveway:

 

 

We walked up the driveway and looked at what the excavator had done so far. Here is the footprint of the basement!!



 

It seems so huge! Here is a couple other views:

 

 

 

 

There is now a giant pile of dirt in the back yard. Of course, we had to climb up it and look at the view. It's gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

It's finally getting real. We are building a house! We are both so very excited and anxious. I know this will be a fun journey full of so many surprises, but can't help but feel a little nervous and unprepared. Fingers crossed we can survive this because ready or not we are building the dream :) 





Choices, Choices!!

So we recently met with our builder out at the site to show us the exact location of the house on the lot. Boy were we super excited about that!! To our chagrin, the house was no where near were we had talked about it being with him on the lot and to top it off we received some bad news :(  He said if we wanted to keep the 3 car garage the house would have to stay where he had it positioned and even then we may not get it! He was strongly, and I do mean STRONGLY encouraging us to scrap the three car garage all together.  Greg and I wanted the house as far forward as possible on the lot so that the backyard was big for the dogs and the (someday) pool. Dreamers, yes we are :) We talked with the builder about all the possible options and left with heavy hearts. It is so hard to hear something you had counted on isn't going to happen.

 I know it sounds bratty asking for a three car garage, as so many people make do with a two car, one car, or (like us currently) no garage, it's just we have a lot of vehicles. Again, another statement that could be construed bratty, but I don't mean it that way. We have our two personal vehicles, Greg's work vehicle, and my parents old MGB that needs completely redone. Where are we supposed to put all of these vehicles?!! Pretty sure the neighbors would prefer that the hillbillies don't move in next door with all kinds of vehicles (some not functional) everywhere.

So as we drove back home we talked and talked about what to do. Both of us were on the fence about what made the most sense for us now and in the long run. There was another wrench thrown into these plans as well. There is a bonus room above our garage that was originally going to be bigger with the three car garage. We had planned, down the line, to put an on-suite bathroom in this room since the one downside of the house plan was that it currently only has one full bathroom upstairs. Mind you this is not a huge problem now since it is just the two of us building a castle in the sky (yep I just went there ha ha) but down the line I can see that as a big issue with a couple kiddos. So if the garage went down in size it also meant that the bonus room would too and the potential space for a bathroom. Eek!

It seems we debated forever until we both just threw in the towel and decided that yard space was much more important to us than garage space. After all, nine or ten months ago I began the campaign for a new house with a big fenced yard and doggy door for our two pups. Wouldn't it just be so ironic if we kept the three car and the yard was smaller?! We both thought so too, without any human babies in the picture our dog babies are really like our children and their needs are important too!

With that being said, I still had several reservations. Where would the extra vehicles go? Where would all of the lawn stuff go? As of now, we have decided to make the cement pad in front of the garage bigger so Greg's work vehicle can just stay out there and my car can get out of its bay ok. Maybe not a perfect solution, but bottom line is the yard for the pups was a bigger priority. Who knows maybe we will have vehicles everywhere and the neighbors will just have to deal, but for now we have found some peace with the decision. As for the extra bathroom down the line, that remains to be seen. The room is still large and there is a big walk-in closet in the room next door we could take some space from, so when the time comes we will just have to figure it out! It's building the dream, but nobody said everything was gonna be perfect and we had to have it all figured out right now after all:)

The land is locked down!

We have another victory in the building process! The land has been closed on by our builder and we have a tentative start time for mid March! We are beyond excited about this. It has taken forever, I mean FOREVER, for the land to get settled. Greg and I are not patient people and really thought that closing on the land should be the easy part. Little did we know there could be so many delays from our builder and his bank. We are so happy it is done now though! Greg drove past the land yesterday and proudly displayed is the Amberwood Construction sign. I just smile thinking about it :)

We have plans to meet our builder out at the land in the next week or two to pin the house on the site and show us the exact footprint of it on our land. So glad we are gonna do this, but we are nervous about it too. Our builder is doing a similar floor plan that we have been keeping up with in another area of West Knoxville, and the house seems so big! Could it fit on our land? Will we have the yard we want too? It seems so hard right now to visualize this house on our land. Conceptually I  know it will fit and give us a nice yard, but  right now it's so hard to actually "see" it. So hopefully after we meet with our builder, Greg and I will have a little more clarity and confidence! We decided to go for this piece of land in an existing subdivision at the back on the cul de sac, because it was our perfect location. It might not be perfect for other people. But for us it is. However, both Greg and I never really thought we would be subdivision people, so this is a little nerve racking. We know it will all be ok in the end, but we have these moments of doubt where we think, "did we make the right decision?" I think this is probably pretty normal but still us non subdivision people sometimes worry ya know. I think it would be weirder if we didn't, or at least that's what I tell myself :) Even with the worry, we are so happy to begin this process! Be on the lookout for our design choices to begin. Ready or not we are building the dream Knoxville!!!

Let the Contracts Begin!

So today was another big day in this process of building. Today we signed the construction contract with our builder outlining our home plans, allowances for lighting, fixtures, flooring etc as well as the upgrades we were requesting from the start. Greg and I have spent the last several days racking our brains just to be sure we weren't missing something we wanted to include. It seems like such a large and daunting task to outline all of this now at the start. Who know what we may want 2 months down the line?!! Our builder has let us know that we can make changes to the house during construction with a change order form, but it will probably end us costing us. Hence why we have tried so hard to make sure every little thing we have questions about we have addressed over and over with the builder and put special requests right in the contract. Silly us, we keep telling ourselves the better we plan now the easier things will be when the actual construction starts. Funny right? We actually have kidded ourselves into believing that this will be an easy process! I think if we are both willing to be honest we know this is going to be so much more challenging then we even thought it could be. But let's be honest, we both feel so happy to be in a position to build a dream home that it wouldn't seem right if it wasn't a hard, tiring emotional rollercoaster. We signed up for this so let the games begin!

Also, since we are building in a neighborhood, we set our Realtor on the task of getting the Homeowner's Association contact info. They will have to sign off on our house plan, exterior building materials, house position on the lot, landscaping and the list goes on and on it seems. I would much prefer that they just "trust us" and let us get on with it but I know people worry that some crazy will come into the neighborhood and build a pink and white polka dot house that will be a nightmare to have next door. (No judgement if you have a pink and while polka dot house, just sayin' that many might not think your house is great for their resale value if you are next door) So very soon I will be in contact with the Homeowner's to get the plans approved so there is one less thing to worry about and we can get on with breaking ground.

Did I mention how excited we are that the breaking ground could be occuring in just 3 short weeks?!! Well we are super psyched!!! Never having been very patient, this whole waiting thing is sure to be tough. I plan on using my time to tirelessly search the internet for house building ideas, decorating tips and just go plan crazy on Pinterest. It will be to our builders benefit to make sure we break ground soon or I am sure I will just be driving him plain crazy with something "awesome" I saw on Pinterest that I just have to have :)

Lastly, my mother asked me to include a picture of the lot before we break ground. So here it is. The picture doesn't seem to do it justice. This lot is at the end of a cul de sac and sits up on a hill with an awesome view. The first time we met the builder at the site he remarked how cool it will be when a storm is rolling in to sit in the house and have a front row seat. Our thoughts exactly!

Building the Dream-Getting the Ball Rolling

Today was the first small step towards this overwhelmingly exciting goal-building our dream home. For months we have searched high and low to find the perfect house and each time we came up empty handed. We were just so frustrated and figured it was never gonna happen for us, or at least it felt that way, since patience is really not a strong suit of mine :) Our patient and really dedicated Realtor suggested we look at building. After the initial, can we build (yes we could) that seemingly insurmountable task was finding a building location. Who knew this could be so difficult?? I sure didn't when we began the task. We knew we wanted a good amount of space and we wanted it in a very specific area of town. Again, our ever patient and wonderful Realtor helped us comb through tons on lots/land for sale and we found a wonderful hidden gem in West Knoxville. Greg and I could hardly believe our luck the spot was just perfect. Strangely, the location was pretty much right in the backyard of a foreclosure we had been interested in but our offer wasn't accepted. I guess it really is true that all things happen for a reason :) Anyway, I digress, but as the fates would have it the foreclosure wasn't for us but we loved the location. So when we found this lot right near there we couldn't believe our luck. We called our Realtor right after we drove by and told her this was it. We had found the Holy Grail!
She then suggested that we contact our builder and have him drive past the site to check it out and see what he thought. He drove past and thought it was great too! Since this was right before Christmas and New Year 's we kinda came to a crashing standstill. We had found the location but we would not be able to move forward with securing the land until after the holidays. Boo! Both Greg and I are not very patient people so this was really hard for us.
Finally the holidays were over and we could meet our builder out at the site to look more at the land, house positioning and talk more about the house plans. Side note-picking the plan was super super hard. We had a really great plan picked out that was just way way to expensive to build and my heart was crushed. After talking with our builder we settled on a modified Frank Betz Sullivan plan. We even went out to see one he was building for another young couple in West Knoxville. Guess us young couples must just like that Sullivan! Anyway, after seeing the house I was overwhelmed with how big it was! We are coming from a small 1040 sq foot home, this sucker seems huge!! We did make some changes to the plan though. The first floor living space calls for a vaulted ceiling. We thought that was a waste of space so we opted for a coffered ceiling and since we were essentially closing in the living room we also got a media room above the living room. Huge bonus for us, so Greg can have his mancave. We also are doing a bunch of archways in the house, a 3 car garage and expanding the master shower.  Once the builder and ourselves had found the plan and had met at the site, our builder put in the offer on the land. Another side note-We decided to buy the house from the builder at the end of construction instead of taking out a construction loan ourselves. This way at the end of the building we could take advantage of Greg's ability to do a VA loan.
We just found out Thursday night our builder's offer was accepted!! Now we have to wait for him to close on the land and construction can begin. It looks like that should take about 3 weeks. So weather and God permitting, we could be breaking ground in February!