Signed, Sealed, and.......

It's been a few weeks since the last post. Lots of small developments going on.

We signed our contract with Wayne Homes to be our builder. Before doing so we went through our choices of options with our rep Tory and made a few changes. We decided that we liked the stone fireplace in the family room, and would eliminate the French doors we had planned to have there. There's not really adequate room for both without looking odd. We were very excited to have a third garage bay for lawn equipment (and man toys) as part of their Summer Sizzle promotion. Anyway, we walked out of the office with a big book which tells us what to do and when to do it and what to expect in the process. Being a geek, I scanned all the pages, created a PDF, and now we have the book on our iPads. Very handy.

Rounding up bids for all the infrastructure needed has been a challenge. You definitely have to take the initiative and keep calling people if you want results. I am on my third well driller - hopefully we'll meet this week. The first guy I called won't return calls and the second never showed when promised and never called. I've made progress in talking to the gas company and it looks like we'll be able to get service from the gas wells already on the property; we'll just need to pay for the hookup and the line to the house. I already have things lined up for the excavation, septic and site prep. And then there's the electric....

I called the power company to see why I haven't heard anything from my inquiry about a month ago. The guy said that the info was incomplete, and that I was on the "slow track" for getting things done. To get on the "fast track" I had to make a couple trips out to the pole to find a number on a little metal medallion. I was then informed that I couldn't receive a site visit until my prospective lot was "staked out" so the field man could see where we wanted service. I told the phone guy that I lived on an 87 acre farm and the field guy would have a zero chance of driving by and seeing the lot without my help. That didn't help...

The next day I staked out my lot as I had promised with bright orange plastic stakes. After 2 weeks I called the power company, gave them my order number, and was given the name and number of an engineer who was responsible for my area. I left a message for him. I'm not sure why it took 2 weeks for them just to give me the number of the guy who could actually do something. Anyway, fate (or the hand of God) intervened and I got a call later that day from the field guy who was in the area on an emergency and had about 15 minutes to stop by and talk with me. He was completely the antithesis of the rest of the company - he was helpful and cared. He gave me a ballpark estimate of what it would cost to get service to the house - an estimated 1100 foot distance. It's a lot more than I was expecting, and it doesn't make much difference whether you go underground or use poles. We'll definitely opt for the underground option since we have a lot of trees which could fall on above ground lines.

We went to another open house - this one we were keenly interested in since it was the same model of home (Montgomery) that we are building. After a 2 hour drive to the hills of West Virginia - and some head scratching - we found the place. It was very helpful to stand in the various rooms and get a better idea of the size and how our furniture might fit. After looking at the great room we resolved what to do with the TV (mount above the half-height fireplace). We also got some great ideas about using pocket doors in the Master bath and closet. There were some other small tweaks that we liked as well - definitely worth the trip and exciting!

Lastly, we talked to the Wayne Homes people and scheduled our "colors" meeting. This is where we make all of the detailed decisions about colors, door handles, carpeting, floors, etc. Once this is done they will create some blueprints and two weeks later we will have our Lot Meeting. At this meeting they visit the site, finalize the placement and orientation of the house according to the slope of the land, where you want the septic and the well to be, etc. You then go back to the office and do some more final planning. This meeting is basically an all day affair.

As you can see, the details to take care of seem endless. We keep reminding ourselves that it will all be worth it when we are sitting in our beautiful new home in the Spring.

Until next time...