Troubles Turned to Blessings in Disguise!

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures. ~Joseph Addison

I’ll apologize right off the bat for waiting a whole month between blog posts. But, to be honest with you, there wasn’t a lot to blog about until recently. Now things are moving again in the right direction.

When I last posted we were waiting for the painter to get done with the interior painting and staining and cabinets. Well, we continued to wait. The painter is cheap and good at what he does, but he sure tries our patience as far as showing up for work.

Early Monday, April 7, we received delivery of the cabinetry that we ordered for our bathrooms and window seats for the family room. We peaked inside to see what the colors looked like; however, we left the cabinets in their wrapping for three weeks until the trim carpenters opened them up.

Window seats

Bathroom vanities

Bathroom storage cabinet

Seat for Bathroom storage cabinet

The painters showed up Monday and Tuesday that week for a couple of hours each day. Then, they came Wednesday and Thursday early in the morning to spray the laundry cabinet doors and drawer fronts. They were gone those two mornings before we got down there. Shayna worked Monday and Tuesday, April 14-15, applying poly on kitchen cabinets and painted one coat of paint on the laundry cabinets.

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Sometime during the April 12-13 weekend, we discovered that our pretty mahogany-stained garage doors weren’t as pretty as they were before. Looking really close, it looked like paint over-spray all over them! Nooooooo!

This is how they looked when they installed them.

close-up of garage door

This is how they looked a couple of weeks ago:

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Two possible suspects for over-spray: subs who installed the Hardie Board (they sprayed primer paint on the ends of each cut); or our painter who sprayed our laundry cabinets outdoors. Either way, we weren’t happy about what they looked like. Those doors were an expensive upgrade. Bill wanted to see if he could get the paint off of them. More on that later.

We were really anxious to get done with the interior of the house so we could bring in the trim carpenter. We were being held up on the interior waiting for the painter to finish and were being held up on the exterior work because of weather. The painters did not show up the rest of the week or the next week! Promises were made by the painter over and over again, but they would always be a no-show.

Jim called our trim carpenter on Saturday, April 19, to see if he was going to be able to fit us in his schedule. He made an appointment to meet with Bill and me on Monday, April 21, to do a walk-thru. I printed out all the pictures of how we wanted our trim to look with examples of beams, mantel, headband, etc., in addition to a list of all the wood materials (and doors) we had received from Fehrenbacher Wood Specialities.  I also had printed all the cabinet layouts. During the meeting Mr. Carpenter kept shaking his head and saying, “I’m not sure if I can fit you in or not. The timing is really bad for me right now.” He even said maybe he could get a crew in and bang out all the trim and then come back later (a long time later) to install the cabinets. The months June and July were mentioned!!!! Are you kidding me?  He said he’d go back home and look at his schedule and see if he could squeeze us in. Early the next morning, he called me and said he was so sorry but he knew we were in a hurry to get the carpentry work done now and there was no way he could take on the job.

There was no time to mope around so Bill, Jim and I moved on getting another trim carpenter right away. I went through our bid construction binder and found we had only received one estimate (Mr. Carpenter) when we sent the bids out in the fall. Bill looked through our spreadsheet of contacts who we sent bids to in the fall and came up with two names. Neither one had sent in estimates then. He text Jim and he immediately set up appointments with both of them to come out and do walk-thrus: Mr. Carpenter #2 was scheduled for the next day (April 23) and Mr. Carpenter #3 was scheduled for that Friday (April 25).

Bill and I really liked Carpenter #2 and his son who came with him. They were not intimidated by our stained trim package. Not many people are using stained trim or doors these days. Everyone is going painted white. He said he could help us design and build our closet systems, too. He and Bill talked about mitering the baseboards for all the corners and he said it was no problem. Carpenter #2 said he would send us an estimate and schedule in a couple of days. In the meantime I found Carpenter #2 had a Facebook page for his business and I was impressed by what I saw.

Carpenter #3 came after he got off work Friday evening. He works full-time for a construction company (mainly commercial work) but does carpentry work on the side. In fact, Jim said he was the handyman in their old neighborhood and everyone loved him. Jim had never met him. As soon as he arrived, he got out of his truck, introduced himself, and immediately asked how we liked our garage doors. I said that we loved them until we got the paint over-spray. He went up to the doors and looked around. He told us that he had five of the same doors on his new house he just got done building up the road from us and they had to all be replaced because the finish was cracking! He started pointing out that ours were cracking, too. Told you there was more to our garage door story. And, there is still more . . . Later. 🙂

Carpenter #3 was younger than #1 or #2 but was knowledgeable. He looked at our door frames and questioned why they were broken down (easier for painter to stain but more for carpenter to install) and had his own idea of installing baseboard corners. Bill told him they had to be mitered PERIOD. He said he would drop by our estimate over the weekend and give us his schedule of when they could do the job. Before leaving, Bill gave him a piece of our wood so he could practice cutting miters for the baseboard. You got to love Bill!

Bill and I decided if the price and schedule were right, we’d go with Carpenter #2. Famous last words! Sunday afternoon Jim got a call from Carpenter #3. His price was low. Two thousand lower than Carpenter #1’s initial estimate (which would have gone up a couple Ks after our walk-thru if he had taken the job). And, he and his brother and another guy could start working Wednesday afternoon after they got off work. He said they would work Wednesday-Friday evenings, all day Saturday and all day Sunday.

Bill called Carpenter #2 and asked if he had an estimate for us. He emailed me his detailed estimate later that afternoon. It was almost double the price of Carpenter #3 (and $3K more than #1’s initial bid) and he didn’t give us dates of when they could start.

After much consideration (and reassurance from Jim that all their old neighbors raved about his work) we decided to go with Carpenter #3. This is where Blessings in Disguise comes into play as you’ll see in the upcoming photos.

Now, all we had to do was get that painter back out to finish the inside BEFORE the trim carpenter came on Weds. We devised a punch list for Mark and gave him a deadline. One of the items was to repaint one of the upper walls in the family room which we thought was painted the wrong color. See what you think.

Same or Different?

Mark worked Monday and Tuesday, April 28-29, long days. Turns out the walls above are painted the same color. He even applied paint to both of the walls again to show Bill. Apparently, the light causes an optical illusion. Bill said Mark even exceeded his expectations of getting interior stuff finished. He applied poly to the stained screen frames, he stained and applied poly to the rest of the windows and the sliding glass door. He painted the laundry cabinets and toe kicks which were missed the first go-around.

Laundry Cabinet Toe-kicks

During the last couple weeks of April, Bill worked in his workshop re-arranging and organizing it in preparation for the electrician and plumber. We bought new storage cabinets.

New Workshop Storage Cabinets

Putting one of the big cabinets together.

Bill had bought several boxes of discontinued hardwood flooring at Lowe’s over a year ago for $5 a box. He finally put them to good use and installed new tops on some of his cabinets.

Updated cabinets with new tops

Big cabinet already filled up!

Bill decided to sand and poly his work bench, too! He built this years ago at our last house.

Cleaned up the work bench

Vectren came out and installed our permanent electric mid April. We still have the temporary post, too, which the trim carpenter is using. After he’s done, that will be removed. They ran our electric and gas lines to the house, too.

Tearing up the road to bring gas across from the other side of the road

There are the lines

They ran the lines up the yard to the left of the driveway and then under the driveway by the garage to final hookup to house.

Permanent electric installed

We’re all set

Wednesday, April 30, we had our HVAC installed. They said they’d be back to dig the geothermal when the ground wasn’t so wet and we had electric hooked up the our new HVAC unit.

HVAC installation

And, the trim carpenters started that same day. Tim Baker is Mr. Carpenter #3. OMG! He is like an energizer bunny. Tim arrived around 1:30 that day and started working on baseboards. Guess what? He sure did a great job mitering those corners!

Mitered baseboard corners

Linen closet baseboards

Soon Tim’s brother (Mike) arrived and Tim put him on installing the interior doors.

First door installed

Then Neal arrived and Tim put him on installing cabinets.

Neal checking out the first cabinet – the upper corner cabinet

Bill was there to help with the cabinets.

Bill helping Neal install cabinets

Tim asked if I would come down to approve the window trim he did on the first window before he continued. I was ecstatic when I saw it! He said he figured I liked it by the look on my face.

Sample of window trim and sill

The guys worked until about 8:00 pm that evening and returned the next day with a fourth guy. They took off Friday, worked all day Saturday and took off Sunday. They got a lot done, but still a lot more to do.

Three upper kitchen cabinets installed

I’ll never be able to reach anything on those top upper cabinets. Jill took a picture of me reaching up, but the photo was blurred. I could only reach up to the bottom two levels of the corner cabinet. 🙂 To show you how tall these are, here is a picture of Bill reaching up. He can reach three levels!

Bill reaching up to wall cabinet.

 

Close-up of window sills

Close-up of window top casing trim

Door trimmed out with upper casings the same as the window trim and we have plinth blocks on the lower part of side casings

Headband installed in most of the areas

Double closet doors in one of the bedrooms (garage entry door still to be installed)

Sample of window, closet door and headband

Front door trimmed out

Drop down beam in master bedroom hallway

Laundry cabinets being installed

Laundry cabinets ready for doors

Master bathroom vanities going in

Master bathroom with desk area in-between vanities

These vanities were such a tight fit and our 5″ baseboards wouldn’t fit under the toe-kick. So, Tim “ripped” the bottom part off the baseboard in the whole bathroom to match all around. I’m not sure if you can see or not, but we also had electric run so I could have a plug on the side of the right vanity. The electric was in the wrong place, but Tim cut the drywall and moved it over. That part will be covered up with granite backsplash. These guys were great at coming up with solutions that worked and still looked good.

The hall bath was a bear to install, too! They really didn’t allow any give or take on these cabinets. Tim and Bill decided to use a piece of our trim to use as a spacer to bring the cabinets out a little from the door. Looks fine and worked. Bill said Neal is a perfectionist. I’m glad!

Hall bath cabinets going in

Hall cabinets installed

I didn’t think this huge master bath storage cabinet with seat was going to fit. But, Neal made it work!

Master bath storage cabinet

A couple of things happened which we had to remedy.

Here was an oops I discovered where two doors met.

What’s going on here?

But was quickly fixed. Tim laughed when I took the picture below and said while winking, “That’s always been like that!” I laughed and said, “Sorry – I have a picture to show otherwise! But, I love that you fixed it!”

Fixed casing

Bill left Neal for less than 5 minutes. When he returned he saw Neal drilling some holes in an area where we have water lines! We had a picture for the carpenters of the kitchen wall before drywall to show them where we had blocking and water lines. Bill had to open the drywall up a little to see if there was damage. Neal had nicked the pex tubing.

Drywall cut out to assess water line nicked

Bill called the plumber that evening and asked if he could come out the next day. Bill ended up texting him a close-up photo of the tube and the plumber said it was fine because the tubing is so thick and it was only nicked. I hope that is true when we turn on water!

See the cabinet to the left of the large pantry cabinet below? Looks like that is going to be moved to the garage bump-out area. When our electricians came to installed the electric to the new HVAC system and our well pump they said we couldn’t install anything permanent in front of the electrical panels.

Pantry cabinet installed

We talked about installing the cabinet after all the inspections and we moved in, but . . . I decided this weekend that I still didn’t have a place for my mops and vacuum cleaner. So, those are going to be stored to the left of the pantry cabinet and we’ll also have room for this piece which I decided not to use in the entry cause it just didn’t go with everything else in the family room.

Antique desk

We are going to have the painter paint it the same colors as our laundry cabinets. This will sit opposite where my computer area will be in the laundry room so, I’ll use it as my mail/bill desk.

Thursday, May 1, I called David Ferrero to see if he could measure and install our glass shower door which we would order from Ferguson’s. David came out Friday morning, May 2. Lindsey at Ferguson’s called me Monday, the 5th, with price and we placed our order for the door and shower grab bar. Should be delivered in about 2 weeks.

Electricians hooked electric to the new HVAC system and well pump (the blue tank) on Friday, too.

Electric hooked up to HVAC and Well Pump

One of the biggie problems over the weekend was that our window seats didn’t fit on either side of our fireplace. All of the engineers in the family gathered down at the house to see if there was any way to remedy the situation. Bill and Tim talked about cutting the stone down on the lower side where the seat would go. But, if they did that and got the seat in, we wouldn’t be able to open the drawers. We finally came to the conclusion that the initial measurements by our cabinet sales guy were off. I was given the privilege of delivering the bad news to our cabinet sales guy. Gulp!

Rick came out Monday, May 5, and measured over and over. He said sometimes these things happen. He said they’d make it right and he’d put a rush on getting new ones made. Bill helped Rick take the window seats away.

Things could have been a lot worse. We can move in without window seats. If this had been the case of bathroom vanities, we would have had a major setback. Not worth getting upset about it.

Remember the garage door saga? Bill spent many hours Sunday, May 4, trying to clean off the paint on the garage doors. He was able to get a lot of it off but he discovered even more cracking of the finish. Monday, he called the company where we ordered the garage doors. We discovered they have a life-time warranty against cracking as long as you are the original purchaser. But, gosh, should these be cracking so quickly? These weren’t cheap doors! Anyway, they are going to be sending the Chi door representative out to look at the doors. What a pain!

Since we had a warm sunny forecast for this week with no rain Monday-Thursday, we asked Jim to text Mark the painter and asked that he start painting the exterior of the house. He said he’d pick up the paint in the morning and be out. He didn’t get here until 3:00 pm, but he came and painted several hours. Finally going to get rid of that “baby poop” greenish primed color. We think the color is going to blend in well. It will be a little darker once the second coat goes on.

First coat of paint (bottom section)

Close-up of paint (on right side). Looks like he missed a couple of spots.

Front section painted one coat

Looking better

And, our excavator septic installer showed up Monday and Tuesday to install the septic! Yay! Bill said they have to wait until the city says they can dig the lateral lines. Something about it still being too wet and waiting until results from more soil testing samples come back.

Digging

Septic Tank

This view shows location in front of house

There is some deep digging going on

Piping

Dig dig dig

Built the pad for our back patio

We have two painters today, so they should be able to get a lot more done. And, the trim carpenters plan to work this afternoon/evening today and tomorrow installing our kitchen and island cabinets. We have the granite people coming on Monday, May 12, to template counter-tops and bathroom vanities. They told me that it will be another 2-3 weeks after that when they come back down and install. They are coming from Indy. That will push completion date out further because we can’t have plumber install all his stuff until the sinks are installed (we are getting our sinks from the granite company).

Bill lined up the cabinets and the island parts so everything will be ready for the carpenters.

Kitchen/island cabinets lined up ready for install

Closer view of island parts

I cannot wait until these are installed and we can see what they will look like. Bill has to get the glass for the small upper cabinets and install it into the doors before installing cabinet doors. He can start installing doors and slides after cabinets are installed.

The carpenters plan to work all day Saturday doing our beams and mantel in the family room and installing the tongue-and-groove porch ceiling. They still have the garage entry door to install along with more trim and headband in the kitchen after cabinets go in.

Tim also said he could build our closet systems. He and his wife invited Bill and me to their new home last weekend to see his trim work in their home. Gorgeous! I told him he was our blessing in disguise! I’ve looked at houzz.com for closet ideas and printing out photos to show Tim. I’ve sketched out the closet plans on graph paper and will show Tim today what I’ve come up with so far and see what he will charge us. We will buy the materials and Bill will stain and poly the wood to match the rest of our house.

Master Walk-in Closet ideas

All the other closets

The last item in this post is about our well. The well guys came out yesterday, May 6, and hooked our well to the pump. They had Bill running it for 15 minute intervals to get some of the gunk out that might have settled. But, we have water!!!!!

We hope we will be in our final push soon. We sure cannot wait to move into this new home!

 

 

 

 

 

One journey ended . . . Another to begin

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. ~Bob Hope

I am happy to say we FINALLY closed on our construction loan Thursday afternoon (Sept. 19)! The process took longer and was more strenuous than we ever thought possible. We started our first loan application on June 17!!! And, if you really want to count the whole process, we actually started a preliminary pre-approval type process back in January with the regional loan officer in the Indy area. Needless to say . . . that was a journey we are glad has come to a close.

Sherry, our loan originator, continually told us she didn’t see any reason we wouldn’t be approved for the loan. But, the relentless questions and requests had us doubting that fact. This was our first construction loan – ever. We have purchased several homes and refinanced many times as the rates got lower and lower over the years. The construction loan process was a whole other beast. 😯 I’m an organized person, keep receipts, capable to create spreadsheets, scan documents and save them in pdf format, and attach them to emails. Boy, did those skills come in handy over and over again.

We eventually found out why we were experiencing so many questions and requests. Apparently, the bank had never dealt with someone who had purchased so many items for the house or who had already paid for improvements to the land (well, pole barn, driveway, etc.) prior to getting a construction loan. 🙄 We only mentioned all of items when we initially started the loan process because we thought it could be used toward our equity for the loan. We really didn’t need most of it for that. It would have been a lot easier if we had purchased the stuff out-of-pocket after we had the construction loan. Purchasing it before, everything had to be documented and recorded for HUD. The appraisal came in fine.

At one point, Bill said he’d just take the money out our investments and pay cash for the rest of house construction.  However, our financial adviser said he could make us more money than the 4% interest we will pay for a construction/mortgage. And, since we can still deduct the interest on our taxes and we can afford to pay for the mortgage in retirement, we went this route. Hopefully, we won’t regret this. 😕

Enough about that nightmare issue.

To lighten the mood and has nothing to do with construction loans or building a house, here is pix of some wildlife we see out where we live. Just moseying down the road – a family of turkeys. They wouldn’t get off the road either until I finally drove closer to them. The Dad (on the left) finally walked to the right of the road to join the Mom who was up in the bush area. The three youngsters finally flew toward the left. You can see my speedometer hologram in the windshield set at 0. I was parked while taking pictures. 🙂

Turkeys!

Now, for the exciting news!!

We are finally going to start building our house next week!

As soon as we knew we got the appraisal and knew we were going to close on the loan, Jim said we needed to make any changes to our house plans and spec document ASAP. He needed to send the plans and specs to the building commissioner to pull our permits and the foundation contractor so he could start as soon as we had the permits. It was also time for final decisions. Once the footers are poured, no more changes to the house plans! Jim and Jill both asked if we were ready to move forward, because we were getting ready to spend some big money really soon! And, no backing out of the process. We both said . . . “Bring it on! We are ready! More than ready!”

I went through the plans and specs and marked them up with any changes we might have had since getting bids back and contracts from subs. While I was doing that, Bill spent his time going through contracts, cleaning up our construction binder, and putting all the information into Microsoft Project. Bill had downloaded a house construction template and had to tweak it to fit our construction. We are using MS Project as a scheduler. We spent two long days (Tuesday & Wednesday) working through all the information and updating everything on the digital versions. We sat down with Jim late Wednesday evening to go over all the changes.

Bill and I spent Thursday morning making more changes and finalizing the spec document so we could email to Jim. Jim made all the changes to our plans and emailed off the documents to the building commissioner and foundation guy. One of our changes we had to make was to our fireplace. We originally wanted our fireplace to look like this:

Fireplace we like

After Jim drew the fireplace for us to figure out sizes, we discovered the columns would have to be skinnier than the ones in the picture. Then we noticed that we would not have any room on the hearth to place our fireplace tools or to set wood down on the sides of the fireplace doors. So, without a fuss, I said I’d give up this dream. With the modifications, it would change the look of what I had envisioned. However, that meant we had to come up with a new design and fairly quick. I found this design:

Bill liked the double wooden mantel. I did not like above the mantel. So, Bill suggested that we extend the stone up to the vaulted flat ceiling – about 13 ft from the floor. So, I did a little magic with the photo in some of my computer software and came up with something like this:

Fireplace with Ledge stone

Every change constitutes either phone calls, emails, or visits back to contractors. This involved our stone guy. Before we headed to our closing, we made a visit to see Rick at Tri-State Stone. The stone on this fireplace was a ledge stone. We liked that stone on the fireplace, but we weren’t sure if there was enough variation in the stone sizes like the Cutface Suede we had picked out for our exterior.

Centurion Cutface Suede Stone

I looked through a bunch of photos on Houzz.com and Google and neither Bill or I liked the Cutface on that big of a fireplace. Here we go again! More changes. 😡

Rick showed us several samples of stone and several binders full of photos of buildings and fireplaces he had designed. He suggested we do a stone border around the fireplace to give it more visual appeal. Can you see the difference?

Curved border

Square border

Of course, Bill preferred the curved one. Me, not so much. Oh, it would look great if our fireplace was curved at the top, but ours is not. And, I do like straight lines! 😉 A curved border just wouldn’t look right to me. So, I told Rick to come up with some straight lined border around the fireplace. Here is a photo of the fireplace we are buying.

Enerzone

We want the fireplace stone to match the exterior wainscoting stone. After looking at the Centurion Ledge we decided we wanted something else. We had picked out Centurion Cutface stone in the color Suede. Centurion Cutface has a lot of jagged edges – hence the name. I’m thinking that dust could collect a lot more on jagged edges. Bill spotted another sample of stone that he liked – Stack. It was in the color Bucks County. Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions. It never ends.

Centurion Suede Cutface Stone

OR

Centurion Bucks County Stack Stone

OR

Centurion Suede Stack Stone

I think the Bucks County’s dark stones would match the Bronze trim really well. But, I think it has too much orange color in it. I still like the Suede colors. Plus, it would go well inside and out with those burgundy color stones and the mahogany front door and mahogany cabinets and trim inside. Poor Bill. He says he has no say in colors. 😥 And, he is right. The color decisions are mine. 😀 So, it looks like we will go with the Centurion Suede Stack Stone for the exterior and fireplace. So, it might look something like this but with a straight line stone border around the fireplace:

Enerzone fireplace with Centurion Suede Stack Stone with Mahogany mantel

Now, we just have to see if Rick has a sample of the Centurion Suede Stack stone and we’ll take back the other three samples we have. Check that off the list!

We finally got a long-awaited quote for truss over the garage lumber package from one of the lumber yards on Thursday, too. Bill spent most of Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning comparing that quote to the other one we had. Decisions had to be made which lumber yard we were going to use. When Bill picked up the quote, they handed him our window and exterior door quotes. I looked at them quickly and noticed that both of those quotes were older ones. Oh, no! We don’t want them to order the wrong things! 😯

Friday morning Bill emailed the window/door guy and told him our concerns. He asked if we could come down and meet with him and go over the quote line by line. We met with Joe on Friday mid morning. Thank goodness we did that. We found some errors on the quote – like white interior prefinish on two windows! We are supposed to have bare wood so it can be stained. Plus, Joe was great to suggest which way a window should open in each room. We double-checked everything and he made the changes and printed us a new quote and emailed Jim the revised final one. I struggled with the interior borders of the window screens. They came in white, almond or bare wood. Bill was leaning toward the Almond but I really didn’t like the color against a Mahogany color (which would be our trim color). We may live to regret the decision I finally made, but I went with bare wood and will have our painter stain it along with the window and door trim. I’m sure our painter will regret that decision, too!

The meeting with Joe was a GREAT experience! In fact, I told Jim I wished we could do that with all the major contractors to make sure the correct things were going to be ordered. It’s so much better having the expert going through the order with us line by line. It never hurts to have several people’s eyes looking at the same thing and finding mistakes. Joe said we were doing things the right way. Making all the decisions before construction started.

Friday morning Jim said he was going to go to the County Building Commissioner’s office and see if he could pick up our building permit. He had emailed our plans the night before. I was surprised that we could get a permit that quickly. I gave Jim a signed blank check that morning to pay for the permit. As soon as we had the permit, we could start building! Jim had made arrangements with our foundation guy to pour the footers on Monday, September 23! We were finally going to start building our dream house! By the way, Megan did mention that September the 23rd was her birthday and asked why would her Daddy schedule our build to start on her birthday! 🙄 I told her that all the work would probably be done while she was in school so it would not take anything away from her day. So, Happy Birthday, Megan and Birdie (my sister)! They share birthdays.

Bill had given Jim the contact information for the block suppliers, block installers, lumber company, framer, and roofer so Jim could get them scheduled. Best laid plans always seem to change. First of all, Jim found out that we couldn’t get the building permits without a drawing from the septic installer of what the septic would look like on the property. So, that sub is coming this morning to do that. He will give to Jim and Jim will email that to the Building Commissioner on Monday. Jim said he could get the permit after that was submitted. And, since we had rain all day yesterday the foundation guy said it worked better if he started on Tuesday. And, we couldn’t start that without the permit anyway. Now we are shooting for Tuesday, Sept. 24, to pour the footers. Megan’s birthday will not be spoiled by construction after all. 😉

Today Jim is staking out our property. He is a professional licensed land and survey engineer. He surveyed all our properties. This morning Bill and I will be assisting Jim in the staking by holding tape measures. I think I’ll be able to manage that. I hope! Bill is also staking off where the septic will be installed so no one will drive over that part of our property. There is something about driving over that portion with heavy machinery that is not good according to Jim. I’m not sure what it is, but I think it has to do with heavily-compacted ground affecting the effectiveness of the septic.

I’ll take pictures today. It’s a gorgeous day to get this project started!

Next up: Hopefully pictures of actual construction of our house.

Hurry Up and Wait, Part III

Throughout all the chaos of the previous week, Bill continued to work on the comparison spreadsheet. After Bill would get done with sections, he asked me to go over them in a more detailed format and note any questions we might have. Bill tweaked his formulas several times to see if we could get a true apples to apples comparison. When he thought he had gone as far as he could go on the spreadsheet, he printed it out. We planned to sit down with Jill and Jim Friday (Aug. 16) evening to go over pros and cons and $$$. Honestly, looking at the spreadsheet, I couldn’t really tell if the bottom line figure gave the true picture or not! I was confused even more. 😦

Friday evening after the kids went to bed, the four of us started talking about figures and comparisons. Bill and Jill are “numbers in their head” people. They are both mechanical engineers and have a way of looking at the big picture and cutting to the chance. It appears that Jim and I are more the “break everything down to very detailed line items” type of people. Yes, Jim is an engineer and is an expert at what he does, but his brain matches mine as we like to see detail detail detail to support the big picture. Jill finally said – forget all the line items. She said you already know what you want in this house and you already know what those things will cost because we had already bid those items out from our very detailed spec document. Obviously, the builder did not look at our very detailed spec document and went about pricing our house the way he was used to pricing out a house. Allowances for our items could be changed. Jill said all we needed to look at were the fixed prices the builder quoted (not allowances) – lumber, painting, roofing labor, siding, trim carpentry. Hmmmm, that’s what Bill was saying all along. 😕

Jim got out his scratch pad and started to make notes. We looked at the prices the builder quoted for those fixed items and compared only those with our bids we had received. If the builder’s fixed prices were low enough to make up for the majority of his management fee and we plugged in all of our spec figures in the allowances and still came close to the total of bids we had gotten, maybe it would be worth going with the builder. Jim was not charging us any management fee for being our general contractor. There were fees from his family’s construction company (permits, insurance costs, etc.) and those would be included in our cost.

Jim sent an email to the builder that evening with our questions. We wanted to know the specifics of the painting bid – did it cover all the interior and exterior and staining? We wanted to know if the siding bid was for Hardiboard and if it was prefinished Hardi or unfinished and what material the shakes were? We wanted to know if the trim carpenter’s price included the custom fireplace? We also asked if we were to build the house ourselves, would the builder be interested in subbing out painting, siding, trim carpentry, and roofing for the same price. We decided we would wait to make our final decision of using the builder or subbing it out ourselves until we got answers back. However, I did mention that I had lost faith in the builder because he had not looked at our spec document. He even said in our last meeting that he had never worked with clients with that detailed a spec document. I said I wasn’t sure we would ever get what we actually wanted in our house working with the builder. Jim said that was a good thing to bring up. He thought it would be possible, but he felt we would have to spend hours with the builder going through the whole spec document with him and making sure everything was covered. And, it may even raise the price more. Ugghhh.

On Monday (Aug. 19) Jim got a call from the builder and they discussed all the questions Jim had sent him via email. The builder was not interested in subbing out any of the jobs if we built the house ourselves. That night we talked with Jim and decided that the cost of using the builder wasn’t that great of a deal and we still doubted we would get what we wanted in the end. Besides, we felt the builder didn’t still understand us. He had asked Jim if he should schedule a time for us to meet with Fergusons to pick out all our kitchen and bath stuff. If he had even looked at our spec document he would have known we already had all that spec’d out or already purchased! 😡 Jim said he was fine no matter what we decided. However, if he was going to be general contractor, he wanted to get this whole thing started. We told him we wanted to just sub it all out and that the bank was waiting on a contract. And, that was what we needed to work on next.

Trying to stay positive, the pros of the whole builder versus subbing out ourselves thing were:

• We found we really did have some good bid prices.
• We were able to get another good painter in the meantime that ended up being cheaper than the builder (which was our lowest bid).
• We finally found a roofer. Turned out to be the roofer the builder used.
• Because of what the builder suggested (his background before housebuilding was a painter), we decided to go with unfinished Hardiboard instead of the LP SmartSide siding. And, we could get the colors we wanted by having our painter paint and caulk the Hardi siding and trim.
• Last, we knew this way we would get the house we really wanted.

Within a couple of days we were able to get a contract worked up and signed and emailed to the bank. It was a great 65th birthday present for me! Signed and dated on August 22. Sherry at the bank told us that because of the fiasco of the application denial, we had to start a new application and start all over! 😯 I asked her if we were still going to be able to keep the 4% interest rate we had locked in two months ago. She chuckled and said yes. I wasn’t sure what that chuckle meant until later. She said she had all the information and she would plug it back into the computer. We scheduled an appointment to sign all the papers again on Friday, August 23, at 10:00 am. Jim asked that when we were there to ask Sherry when we could start scheduling subs and get construction started.

When we got to the bank Sherry got out our file and we started signing all those papers again. When we got to the Good Faith Estimate page, and we were looking through it, I asked Sherry why there was a $7500 charge for points in the 4% interest section. She said, “Whoops, that’s not suppose to be there. They waived that fee!” Bill and I looked at each other and then Sherry said, “Don’t ask!” Turns out Sherry negotiated that we didn’t have to pay any points to keep the 4% since they had messed up our original loan. Originally, we were suppose to pay 1/2 point to get that rate. Interest rates had gone up since our original application. Apparently, the points went way up!!!

Pros for redoing our loan application were:

• We got to keep our 4% interest rate on the construction loan and didn’t have to pay any points! Thanks, Sherry, for making that happen!
• We got the construction complete date changed from March 2014 to August 2014.

Sherry said we really needed to wait until the appraisal was back and approved by the bank before we started construction. She said we would probably close on the loan in 2-3 weeks, but as long as the appraisal came in with the right figures, we could start scheduling our subs. She was going to get all the paperwork completed to order the appraisal that afternoon. Apparently, she did because the appraiser came out to the property one day last week. He called Bill to ask some questions about the pole barn and what improvements he had in it. The appraiser also called Jim Friday about the house plans and had a few questions. Bill asked the appraiser when he thought he might be done and if he saw any problems. He said he didn’t foresee any problems in it appraising for what we need and he thought he’d be done the middle of this week. In addition, our loan has gone to underwriting as Sherry has emailed me a couple of times to answer some questions for them. Apparently, underwriters also don’t like to read spec documents or other documents that we provided with the application as all the information was there. 😉

So, it is our hope that we can finally start construction on our home sometime in mid September!

We are tweaking some of our bids to make sure all the materials are correct on the quotes before we start ordering. Also, on Weds., August 28, Jim sent out emails to a list of our subs saying their prices looked good and for us to continue going forward, they need to sign the contract which was provided in our original bid set we sent out two months ago. Jim was nice and sent each one another copy. Jim decided we would give subs until tomorrow – the day after Labor Day to get back with him. We’ve received about 1/3 of the information back as of today. It’s like pulling teeth. Thank goodness I went back through the bids as our front door quote had the wrong in-swing and we had the wrong color handle sets for the windows. Those have been corrected. But I think I found another mistake on our bathroom window. It is supposed to be an awning window that opens. But, there is no mention of a screen or handle set with that window. So, I’m afraid what was quoted is a stationary window. It’s always something.

Okay let’s move on . . . Here’s a little funny. Bill has worked hard in the pole barn trying to get it organized. But, he’s gotten delayed because he really wanted to paint his cabinets so they all matched in his new workshop. You have to know that Bill had probably more boxes packed and moved from his old pole barn to here than we had for the house! And, they were full boxes and heavy. Bill’s labeling of his boxes and his inventory were . . . how can I put this and not sound so critical? . . . well, they were not how I would label them. And, apparently not how Marty would have labeled them. Before Marty had to return to college, he was helping Bill move those heavy boxes. Marty went to move a large box that was probably over 50 lbs and struggled to lug it over towards Bill and then asked Bill (sarcastically) to read the label. It was labeled “pencils.” 😀

Pencil box

Marty said, “There’s more than pencils in this box!” There may have been a few pencils in the box, but here is what it looked like inside:

Inside the pencil box

Why do I bring this up? Well, because Bill was looking for his heat gun to use in helping him clean some of the cabinets he was going to paint. He couldn’t find the heat gun listed on his inventory or labeled on any of his boxes. Bill opened almost all his boxes looking for that heat gun before he found it. So, Bryan, I knew when you were helping your dad pack in the old pole barn you bet half of your dad’s boxes probably wouldn’t be opened again in 20 years. Here’s proof. He opened almost all of them only 2 weeks after they got here! They aren’t unpacked (yet), but at least they’ve been opened!

Opened boxes

I asked Bill if he found the heat gun in the “pencil” box. 😆 He didn’t. He probably found it in one of these . . .

Sliding door box

Misc box

Clock box

Inside clock box (no visible clock!)

Here are pics of Bill’s cabinets he’s painted.

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That brings you up to date with what is going on. I hope the next time I post I’ll have pictures of us finally breaking ground for the house!

Hurry Up and Wait, Part II

In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive. ~Lee Iacocca

Bill and I were living with a family of two full-time working parents with two full-time school and activity busy children; two dogs (one failing 16-1/2 yr old and one 2-1/2 yr old), a guinea pig, a rat, and two beta fish. In addition to what Bill and I try to contribute to our multigenerational living arrangements, we also had so much going on with housebuilding decisions, Goldie’s health, the movers, and finding storage for all our “stuff.” The only thing we could do was greet each day with a smile and a prayer and plow through it the way we always do . . . by working hard . . . Bill taking over the physical labor work, along with spreadsheet analyzing; me taking care of the family with laundry, cooking, dishes, along with organizing all the housebuilding paperwork and communicating with the bank. These are the roles we know and feel comfortable in.

Wednesday (Aug. 13) morning Bill got a call from the area manager of the moving company to tell us that the three moving vans headed our way were delayed. They had run into stalled traffic on the highway and then one of the drivers became ill and they had to swap out people. We were told to expect the first truck to arrive around 11:00 am. That gave Bill several hours to work on creating a “builder versus our subcontracting bids comparison spreadsheet” and start entering info. I took off for the grocery to buy a variety of drinks and ice for the moving crew. A little before 11:00, Bill went back down to the pole barn to wait for the movers. He called me when the first moving truck arrived and I came down. We decided that we both needed to be down there to help manage where we wanted house and workshop items to be stored in the pole barn and check condition of items as they came off the truck. We had 9 movers and 6 trucks the day we moved out of our home in Central Indiana in early June. This day we had 3 movers and 3 trucks! This was gonna be a long day. But, I had enough cold drinks to satisfy an army!

The first truck arrived about 1-1/2 before the other two trucks made it. One guy started to unload it all. Bill had a lawn chair set up for me to sit and watch.

The first moving truck!

As soon as the mover unloaded Bill’s workshop swivel chair, Bill plopped himself down and supervised. The plan was to put house stuff on the Right of the pole barn and workshop stuff on the Left.

Bill in his supervisor chair

The other two trucks arrived and the three movers worked together to start unloading furniture.

Furniture piling up

Couch – a place for me to sit and watch!

It soon became clear that we had to deter from the original plan of house stuff on the Right as some of the furniture Jill wanted to use for her new office space was quickly getting lost in the back of the pole barn. Before long, there was no rhyme or reason of where the movers put the boxes and bins. They put them where they could fit them. Before we knew it, there was no place left to put anything else. 😯

Pole barn filling up

As the afternoon was coming to a close, there was one last item to be moved from the last truck. And, it was gonna be a bear to get down that ramp. It was the huge crate Bill had built to house our large king size canopy bed. Neither one of us had seen how they had moved it from our other house and none of the present movers were part of that moving crew.

Last item on the truck

After the movers shuffled a few things around in the pole barn to make room for the crate, they started to manipulate the crate toward the ramp.

Is it gonna fit?

The wheels were hanging over the ramp! The movers would have to try to steady the crate as it was being pushed and pulled down the ramp without the help of the wheels. It was the scariest thing I ever watched. I was so afraid the crate would fall over on them. Bill was staying close to make sure it wasn’t damaged in the move down the ramp. Of course, I didn’t want him standing so close!

Here it comes

And, they made it!

The sighs of relief were audible all around! The guys wheeled the crate inside the pole barn and there wasn’t much room to spare. Here is what the pole barn looked like right before we shut the garage doors for the night!

Full pole barn

It was exhausting being a chair-side supervisor! 😀 We were wiped out by the time evening rolled around. This was one night I think we planned to have leftovers for dinner.

The next day (Thursday, August 15) was a really tough one. It was the day we said goodbye to our Goldie Girl. This is a favorite pic of her in her better years.

Goldie Girl

This is how we want to remember her. We don’t want to remember her how she was the last several months . . . old (almost 17 years old!), confused, anxious, arthritis-ridden in her back legs and hip, out of breath, deaf, eyes swollen from allergies, walking sideways, and having accidents. It’s hard to make a decision to let a part of your family go. My sister Vicki visited the week before and loved on Goldie while she was here. All of my six sisters have a closeness with Goldie Girl. You see, on one of our Sisters Weekends 14 years ago Goldie “lived” with me and my sisters that weekend in our cabin. She was an abandoned dog and the owners of the lake retreat asked if anyone would want to adopt her. You could say Goldie adopted us. My sisters named her Goldie. I was toying with the idea of getting another dog, so I bought a collar and leash and brought her home with me without telling Bill. I had no cell service at the cabin retreat so it was a surprise when I introduced Goldie to Bill. Bill wasn’t too keen on the idea of another dog at the time; however, Goldie quickly won him over and became “his” dog ever since.

Vicki asked if Goldie might have had a stroke because of the walking sideways (off-balance thing) and the confusion. Who knows. Vicki shared I might want to check about dealing with senile dogs online and see what they suggested. After Vicki’s visit, I did check several websites. It appeared that Goldie had almost every symptom of Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome (similar to Alzheimer’s disease in people). It appeared from what I read that she would continue to just get worse. I called my friend Ann to talk to her about Goldie. Ann is my expert on animals and animal behavior. She asked a lot of questions and finally asked the dreaded one – were we ready to let Goldie go? I told her as much as I didn’t want to, I was ready. I thought Goldie’s quality of life was not good. Then she asked – what about Bill? I told her that I did not think Bill was ready yet. That evening I talked with Bill and we decided we would watch to see if Goldie got any worse, and if she did, we would make a decision then.

So, fast forward a week . . . Bill took Goldie outside Thursday, August 15, morning. As soon as he got back upstairs, Bill looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “It’s time.” I said I would call the vet and see if we could bring her in. Bill told me he could not go to the vet with me. He said when we had to put Rusty down 12 years earlier it was too hard and he just couldn’t go this time . . . especially since it was Goldie. As soon as I started to explain to the vet office what was going on, I started to cry on the phone. They made an appointment for later that morning. When I told Bill he would have to help me get Goldie into the car, I started crying. Then Bill said he would go with me but would not be able to go into the treatment room. The rest was hard. I told Jill what we were going to have to do later that morning and asked if she wanted to tell the grandkids so they could say goodbye. Megan and Jack cried and I felt bad sending them off to school afterwards, but they each and Jill spent time with Goldie before they left.

I stayed with Goldie through to the end. It was peaceful. She was no longer in pain or confused.

Sandy, Bill and Goldie

When we got back home Bill immediately went to work with Marty to start moving stuff out of the pole barn into two storage units he had rented down here – one was conditioned and one was unconditioned. This became a theme for Bill and Marty for days and days. And, through this process I would periodically come down and tell Bill what stuff I wanted to keep in the pole barn and what could go to storage. We got out our inventory list and marked off which boxes went where. It was overwhelming. I didn’t handle it well so I stayed away. Poor Bill. It was so hot. He has lost the rest of the weight he wanted to lose and he is fit and trim these days. And me, on the other hand, I don’t like sweating off my weight so I’ve not done as well. 🙂 Besides, I prefer going to the Y for the water aerobics.

Bill has managed to get shelves up in the pole barn and moved wood for the cabinets and other items up on them. He even got one of his peg boards up.

Shelving units

Shelves

Peg board

Apparently, we did not receive the construction loan application denial letters on Wednesday, August 14. I was mistaken. We received them on Friday, August 16. So you can imagine the state of mind we were in after the last two days we had. I had picked up the kids from the bus stop and grabbed the mail. I called Bill and he took a break from moving stuff and came up to the house. We made a call to our loan originator. She was shocked and knew nothing about it. 😯 She said she would try and find out what was going on. But, it was a Friday and towards the end of the work day. We waited about an hour before Sherry our loan person called us back. She said from what she and her boss could figure out the loan processor had royally messed up. They had used $$ figures that were incorrect AND they were supposed to have held the application until we had a signed contract with a builder AND an appraisal. She said not to worry (yeah, right) and they’d get it all figured out the first of next week.

Bill and I were becoming so frustrating. We knew building a house would bring a lot of stress, but this was more than we had bargained for. It’s not just the housebuilding. It’s everything that goes with it. Moving and storage. And the questions the bank and underwriters have! Getting a loan is not like it used to be. Our credit score is in the Excellent range but we have to explain every little thing that shows up on a credit report. I understand the restrictions. But sometimes you feel like you are being accused of doing something wrong. We had to explain how the movers charged our credit card twice and how our credit card company credited us and charged us four times for the same credit!!! We are talking thousands of dollars. We didn’t do anything wrong – the moving company and credit card company were at fault. But, we got the job of trying to explain it all to the bank. Crazy. Try explaining about charging new appliances on a new credit card, paying it totally off the first bill we get, and then when the store gave us a $100 credit on those appliances a month later – it showed up as a new inquiry for another credit card. Huh???? We didn’t apply for another card. The company just sent us a check for the $100 credit because we haven’t used the credit card again. I keep records of everything. And, believe me, the bank has asked for every bit of it! Word of advice – document everything.

Next up: So what did we decide about building the house – Builder or Subbing it Ourselves? Did the bank get things straightened out?

Hurry Up . . . Wait . . . Hurry Up . . . Wait

One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

My goodness, it’s been a long time since I posted. That time has been filled with a lot of hurry up and wait. And, during the wait times, we’ve been quite busy with the family and moving stuff from one storage to another!

Let’s see . . . when I left you we were still waiting for the builder. Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . . He took forever! 😡 Finally, on Wednesday, August 7, Jim text us from Hawaii that he had gotten a call from the builder but it was in the middle of the night (time difference!). Jim said he called him back but got his voice mail. Builder did not call Jim back. Finally we text Jim and asked if we could call the builder and talk with him. Jim said yes.

To be honest with you, I cannot remember if we talked with the builder on Friday, Aug. 9, or Monday, Aug. 12. But, we did get to talk to him first thing one of those mornings. He still really wanted to sit down with Jim and us to discuss everything. We said that was fine, but asked if he could give us a verbal estimate over the phone first. Honestly, we were so tired of waiting. It had been 5 weeks! And, I kept thinking of those grains of sand slowly emptying out of the timer. The builder gave us a price. It was about $15,000 less than our price and that included his management fee. We were definitely interested at that point. We set up a meeting with him and Jim for the afternoon after Jill and Jim returned home from their trip, Tuesday, August 13. We really wanted to get our house started.

The week before our movers called and wanted to know when they could move our stuff from storage down to our pole barn. Bill decided that he would kick things in high gear to get the pole barn insulated and walls up and therefore, he scheduled all of our belongings to be moved on Wednesday, August 14. Marty, the college student, said he would help Bill. They worked some long days, but they got all the walls insulated and interior walls installed. They also got part of the ceiling insulated. The rest will have to wait until a later date. Here are some pics of their progress.

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Our meeting with the builder was scheduled for 5:00 pm on Tuesday. Let me give you a run-down of what that day was like before the meeting. Bill and Marty worked in 90 degree heat in the pole barn and finished the insulation and walls just in time for Bill to shower and head for our meeting. Marty spent the rest of the evening organizing and stacking what was left in the pole barn so we would be ready for the movers the following morning. While Bill was in the pole barn, I was with the grandkids getting them ready for their first day of school the next day. We ended up having to buy a bunch of new school supplies that Jack’s teacher had emailed Jill while they were in Hawaii. Who wants to be out shopping for school supplies the day before school starts? 🙄 We also had to pick up lunch supplies and stop at the library. I got home about a half hour before Bill finished in the barn.  Jim and Jill were delayed getting home from Hawaii Monday evening and didn’t get home until about midnight. Jim got up early on Tuesday and headed for work – probably about 5:30. Jetlagged and with little sleep Jim worked a full day after being gone from work for almost two weeks. Can you imagine how three of the four people felt when the 5:00 pm meeting started on Tuesday?

Sandy

Bill

Jim

We all perked up when the builder arrived at Jim’s office. After cordial greetings and a little small talk, the builder explained how he did his cost breakdown. He handed us one copy of the cost breakdown with all the amounts listed on it. The three of us had to shuffle the paper back and forth to look at the prices. We quickly noticed that the majority of the line items were material and/or labor allowances. There were a few fixed prices, but the majority of the items were allowances. Once I figured that out and could get my hands on the sheet, I immediately tried to focus on the items I knew our prices from bidding out. The line item allowance for carpet, tile, and hardwood was half the price of what we had already picked out. I mentally added the extra amount to the builder’s total. I saw that he had a material allowance for light fixtures and ceiling fans. Really? 😕 We had already purchased all our light fixtures and ceiling fans and all were listed on our spec document. I mentally subtracted that allowance. Bill zoomed in on other line items that were his expertise. He noticed that the insulation that was listed wasn’t the type he wanted. There were other things but there was no way to compare apples to apples until after we got home and could pick through this cost breakdown and the fixed quotes he gave us and compare them to our bids. We told the builder we would get back with him with our decision probably by the end of the week. In the back of my head I was thinking maybe we should wait five weeks to get back with him. 👿 But, those grains of sand were dwindling away and our house was not going to get built without making a decision soon!

But, when did we have time to spend on the lengthy process of making up spreadsheets and going through bids one by one, line by line, and making those comparisons? The movers were set to arrive the next day, Wednesday, August 14. Our dear dog Goldie Girl was going downhill and one of us had to be with her almost all the time to help her go up and down the stairs getting to and from outside at all hours of the day and night. And, if that wasn’t enough, both Bill and I received letters in the mail Wednesday stating that our application for credit for our construction loan had been denied! 😯

Talk about stress!

I had reached my limit and was ready to throw my hands up and say forget it all! However, I knew we couldn’t live above Jill and Jim’s garage the rest of our lives. I told Bill maybe we should just sell everything we purchased for the new house, forget about the cabinets Bill built, forget about house plans. Just build a little shack on the property. He just shook his head and said, “Maybe we should!”

Up Next: The “mover” adventures; saying goodbye to Goldie; and deciding if we would just build a shack . . . or not!