Day 1 of Production!

Today our home hit the production line!
The first half of the home was the last half for today's production run.
Tomorrow is when the real guts start getting put together.

Here are some photos of how the home gets started!

On the job site, gravel was to be delivered and footings started! Will update tomorrow on the status of the job-site and check back tomorrow afternoon for Day 2 Production pictures! 

We have a basement!

This evening we went to our lot to see the progress on the basement digging! We have a very large hole! They also cut out our driveway, and spread some dirt for the construction trucks to drive on rather than tearing up the new driveway cut out or the yard! They also have our top soil separated from the fill dirt which will make the process of back filling much better for our new grass to grow!

Check out the basement!

Top Soil Moved!

This afternoon we got a phone call from a friend telling us that the top soil has been moved!
We knew that the guys digging the basement were starting on Monday, but a pleasant surprise that Saturday afternoon they moved some dirt!

My husband went to mow the property so the grass that will be staying wouldn't become a jungle.  He came back and we all took a trip to visited the property about 5:00.  Here are some photos!

Waiting....

The home has been ordered, the contractor has set dates for his tasks, now we are just waiting for everything to begin.  We are going to be moving dirt on Monday (weather permitting) and the home goes on line next week also! This has been a week of double checking and next week is when the real fun will begin!

I will post pictures as soon as some dirt is moved!

Permits

We are in the process of obtaining our permits! Yay!


My husband went to the county offices and requested our permits.We requested our driveway permit, septic permit, drainage form on Tuesday this week. The septic permit and the drainage permit were issued to him the same day. 
When requesting a driveway permit, they give you three stakes you must place in the ground one at each property line (3 feet from the roadway) and one in the center of where your driveway will be located. A highway department individual will come and check the stakes, to check for 500 or so feet of visibilty coming out of your driveway.  If it passes their checks you are issued the permit. My husband was told it could take anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks for someone to verify the stakes and get your permit approved.  We placed the stakes in the ground last night (Wednesday) and this morning my husband recieved a call that our permit had been issued.  They will mail you the permit or you can pick it up at their office, he is going to pick it up today!

Today he went to City Hall to the building inspector to request our building permit. He had to give the inspector the floorplan, the building permit is based off of square footage of your home.  He paid for the permit, and it should be ready later this afternoon for him to pick up!

Moving right along with permits, we are meeting our contractor this evening to finalize our plans!

Oh so many different flooring choices.....

We have been looking at different flooring choices for months, there are so many choices! We have a sample of the cabinet color and have been carrying it around with us to compare colors. We decided that we wanted to install our own laminate flooring in the Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room, and Family room. We found a few colors that we liked at Menards, and a few colors at Lumber Liquidators, both were priced closely. We decided on Friday afternoon that we would go to Lumber Liquidators that evening and check out a different color I found online. It just so happened that their annual sale was happening last weekend as well. We found the color that I saw online, and decided that was it! It had to be special order since we needed so much laminate. We also ordered the transition bars, and the quarter round. We were very excited, one thing checked off the list!

Sunday afternoon we decided to go ceiling fan shopping. We will be adding at least two ceiling fans when we receive the house, one in the living room and one in the family room. I picked out 3 fans out of the hundreds that were on display. Then I asked my husband which one out of the 3 was his favorite, of course he picked the most expensive one! So we bought 2 of them (they are going into storage with all of our other things!). My only struggle is I hope they illuminate the rooms, the fans we decided on have one large globe covering the three light bulbs. We had similar fans at our old house, except for the globe was a more "yellowish gold" and they did not show as bright as I would have liked them too. The new fans' globes are white so I have hope - of course the other 2 fans I picked out had the "hanging" globes (one globe on each light) - probably a lot more light, but not the look my husband wanted. We are trying to share all the decisions, so we both love our new house.

After purchasing the fans, we decided to look at Menards for some ceramic tile for our foyer entry. I had the cabinet door sample (which is actually the same color as our trim, and our interior doors) and the sample of the laminate we purchased on Friday evening. We found some tile that we both love, of course it is special order, we need to get the measurements for the foyer, and then we will order the tile. My husband says "let’s just LOOK at the laminate flooring here" - from this moment I knew we were going to be in trouble. Keep in mind I had been here many a times before and picked out two colors that I thought looked great with the cabinet door. My husband walks over the couple of aisles and picks out the exact laminate I had selected twice before, in fact we already had a sample at home, and a picture on my phone of this color. After about an hour or so of deciding what to do now - we called and cancelled our first order of laminate from Lumber Liquidators, and placed a new order at Menards. I sure hope we like this flooring - this has been one of the hardest decisions we have had to make so far....hope the other decisions are not as difficult (and if they are I hope few and far between)!

 

We own land!

Thursday evening we had a meeting with the title company to purchase the land for our home!

My husband went to the bank earlier in the day and did a wire transfer to the title company, when we signed the papers the person representing the land got to accept the check for the land right then. 
The meeting was pretty quick, we had to sign a few papers, and that was it! We own land!  The man from the title company said the information would be passed onto the county surveyor within the next day, and the land would be transferred into our names.  Once the land is in our names, we can start obtaining all of our permits needed to build.  Next week my husband will start to obtain the permits!  Our contractor will meet with us one more time to make sure we have discussed everything, and then we can begin!

I also recieved the prints from the factory.  The prints must be reviewed bu the purchaser (in my case me, in most cases the builder and/or the customer) and then signed off on, stating that this is what you want the home to look like.  Now the prints will be sent to the engineering department for the production prints to be drawn and they will  be submitted to the state for approval. 

Moving right along!

This weekend we are going shopping to buy our laminate flooring!