They started framing the house this week!  The kids and I visited on Saturday.  It looks like they have the basement framed out and concrete for the garage poured.  It was so incredibly windy out that we didn't stay for long, just long enough to explore what is new...

Front porch area

Stairs to the basement will be here

The window area for "mima's" (guest) room

Garage

It was really really windy!

I took the kids and our dog, Cooper, out to the lot today to catch up on the progress.  The weather has been tumultuous this week ... warm enough for no coats one day, freezing and threatening snow the next.
Today was cold and windy - and even colder and windier once you get out in the open where our lot is - so we didn't take quite as long of a walk as I'd hoped to.

Nevertheless, the basement concrete walls are in.  Now there were nails left out so I had to keep an eye on the kids.  Kai says they may be able to start framing the house by end of next week!  I'm sure once that starts, things will feel like they are moving rapidly.
There are tons more houses around the area that are [all of a sudden] for sale.  I'm trying not to panic!  Brian and his friend took a truckload of boxes and furniture out to storage today - another effort to "declutter" as we get closer to being ready to put the house on the market. 

The kids walk along a truck's wheel groove

Building has begun!  They broke ground this week (when it wasn't raining) and have the foundation started.  Foundation walls will be poured this coming week as long as the weather cooperates -- which so far the weather looks good until the weekend. 

So we drove up to see the progress this weekend and I think Jacob must have thought that meant the house should have been done.  I think he was disappointed when all he saw was a big hole and an even bigger pile of dirt. Mady was asleep in the car.

We joked with mom that "her" bedroom (the guest bedroom) will be where the ladder and wheelbarrow are located.  Brian told her it would be a "loft" entrance.  :)

We are starting to make selections for the house - we are still working on the "red" factor: I want to make sure that if we pick a red house that it is a good colour, and will not fade quickly (like some cars may do).  We've also selected the black architectural shingles for the roof.  If our scanner ever works again I'll scan my inspiration picture that is the basis for these colour choices. 

Some positive news - the developer was "concerned" that the Left Elevation of the house was 'too plain' and asked Kai to work on it.  Probably he was concerned because the left elevation of the house faces the corner of the street, so highly visible, and we are the first house to build on the larger lots, so perhaps could be impressionable to potential buyers.  Originally he asked us if we would want to change the Left/Right Elevations so that it becomes a mirror of the original plan.  We declined because the plan as-is maximizes the sunlight that would be coming from the south - where all the windows currently are.  So, Kai designed in 3 additional windows for the left side for us at no cost!  Whoo hoo!  I don't think I have the latest design electronically so the drawings I have on this site haven't been updated yet to reflect that.  One window will go on another wall of the stairwell, one that is in the garage, and a third one for the dining area.

However, we've also learned that the developer is also pushing for us to have the yard sodded instead of just seeded, although he approved the original plans.  Sodding, although it would be nice to have, is expensive and if we move in Aug or even Sept, it will still be awful warm out, and we just aren't home enough for watering 3x a day to keep it alive (honestly, about that time of year is when we start to give up on the yard and let it have its way with us).  We may reconsider adding an irrigation system if it's something we have to have, but we may push back as well. 

Further, this week was supposed to be a major step towards getting our current house ready for selling.  We had a carpet replacement for the master bedroom scheduled for Wed.  This was an initiative to start de-cluttering the major pieces of furniture, which were moved out to the office.  Brian stayed home from work during the install, stayed out of the way of the installers while he was working from home, only to discover at the end that it was the wrong carpet!  Right colour, wrong pattern, which was chosen to match as close as possible to the new carpet in the hallway. Ugh.

Turns out that the right carpet was ordered, but the vendor sent the wrong stuff, and no one checked.  So it's a 4-5 day re-ordering and shipping process and then we have to re-coordinate another install.  At least we have some carpet on the floor, but the house is still a mess because we didn't want to move anything back into the room.

Our builder has obtained the permit from the county and is scheduled to break ground next week!

Officially Official

A Ha!  Done!  Finis!
We closed on the new construction home loan today, after an hour of signing and initialing over mind, body and soul to the bank.  :)   Well, at least that's what it feels like.  I half think they hire a private investigator to find out everything about you before agreeing to lend that much money out.

But nevertheless, we are done with the paperwork and down payment on the new house, and Kai will work on gathering up the Deed and permits this week so he may hopefully break ground shortly thereafter.  The ground is fairly saturated from all of the melting snow and ice, plus a tremendous thunderstorm last night.  Hopefully that will clear up soon.

Brian twisted my arm and we celebrated with a slice of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.  Yum.  I managed to save some to share with the kids too. 

And in other officially official news, we also finished registering Jacob for the Before & After Care program at his future school district.  Registering for actual Kindergarten will come in another month or so.  I feel so relieved to have at least this part of the process done, and to know that because we were able to get him in to these programs, he will be able to stay at his school the entire time and not have to get bused to another place until we can pick him up.  I think although Brian has been trying to hype up riding the bus to school to him, Jacob was still showing some anxiety about it; plus, keeping him in the same building will be much more similar to what he does now. 

We are (slowly) making progress on getting our current house ready for the market.  I'm excited - things should start to get pretty busy for us now!

Holy cow, this paperwork takes for.ev.er.  A few more signatures and faxing back and forth; and the bank's appraisal of our plans done, and we finally have a closing date in place - Feb 28th.  Assuming the build takes the full 6 months to complete, that puts us closing and moving in August - right in the midst of starting Jacob in Kindergarten.  That'll be hectic and unfortunate, but I guess it could be worse. 

In the meantime, we met with Kai again this weekend now that the ice has all melted away so we could look at our lot and agree on house placement and spacing.  We also finalized some elevation drawings - I feel pretty good with the changes, which gave it some character, but the key will be choosing the colours and finishes.  We've been saying we wanted a red house, but it has to be the * right * red so that it doesn't look too much like a barn.  Already the neighbourhood is full of blues and greens, so we want to stay away from those; these kinds of neighbourhoods look best when there is variety.

Brian helps Kai Yu measure out the house

The kids took advantage of plenty of open space

All loan paperwork is in and signed, and we are just waiting on the underwriters to finish doing their thing.  We received an email that they may be completed and ready to close on the loan by end of this week - which is about 1-2 weeks earlier than they anticipated.  Ugh - legalities!  Once that is closed out we can finally break ground.
We are also hoping warmer weather this week will melt the half-foot of ice that has been covering most of the area and we can visit our lot with the home builder and make sure we all agree on house placement. 
Since we are on a corner lot, and we will have a public sidewalk to the left (west) of the house, it will give the appearance that our lot is slightly bigger and we've discussed shifting the house this way slightly to give us (really - the dog) a little bit more room for the fenced-in yard. But, we don't want it to look lopsided either, so we'll see what Kai suggests.

In the meantime I have been frantically trying to figure out all this Kindergarten registration and before/after care for Jacob in this new school district.  I can hardly believe we are dealing with this already!  It's a little tricky working with registration when you don't have an established address yet.  On the plus side, getting all the paperwork needed for the schools (and the loan) gave us the opportunity to go ahead and see our future full street address and number.  It was pretty exciting to see it on paper and think: That's going to be our NEW home!