Posted on by Emily

Day 39

Hi.

I’ve just been over here fainting over the cost of windows for the last few weeks.  I do a lot of renovation projects for clients where we need to replace or add a handful of windows here and there, but rarely a whole house of windows, so I was ill-prepared for the quotes that have been coming in for the new house.

Of course, it doesn’t help things that I love natural light and windows.  Or that I want to build a new-old house that has windows that are historically accurate to 1919 but that offer the thermal efficiency and greatly-improved maintenance features of 2019.  Or that we have 60 windows.  Oops.

Meanwhile, Joshua is convinced that we need a fleet of farm machinery and all-terrain vehicles, which will cost as much or more than the windows.  (If you can’t already tell, the budgeting is going just swimmingly.)  Though we have nowhere to store such things at our currently house nor any sort of storage option on the property for the next 9 or 10 months, I receive photos almost daily of his finds on craigslist. He insists they are great deals and that we can’t possibly survive without them.

Here are a few highlights:

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I must admit, I was intrigued by the “power dump” feature on this one.

No, really.

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I mean, who doesn’t need a mini firetruck.

I was telling my girlfriends about all of these at brunch this past weekend and a few hours later I received this as a suggested farm vehicle from one of them:

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I’m so lucky to have such supportive friends.

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Emily

Day 26

Well, it’s a good thing we’re not trying to break ground today because it’s a whopping 17 degrees Nashville.

We do, however, have a stamped site plan.  Woohoo! I’m ready to move some dirt!

….rather, I’m ready to see some dirt moved!

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This is the area around the house and driveway that will be graded.  To the naked eye, this area looks relatively flat, but from the garage side of the driveway to the front corner of the house, it’s nearly a 10 foot drop.

See that orange star I put on the site plan?  That is the location of the tree that Josh’s truck is parked next to in this photo below (taken facing East).  Looks pretty flat, right??

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Meanwhile, final rounds of redlining continue on the house plans.  We are 99.37% there, just catching little things here and there to tweak.

I love finding these notes from Josh.  Can’t wait to see him discover other details in the house as it is being built!

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Posted on by Emily · 2 Comments

Day 17

Now that it’s November, it is time to get serious. We are SO close to getting things rolling on the house build. This week, we met with the bank to get the construction loan process going, which is NOT for the faint of heart. To my knowledge, they will need at least the following to approve us for a loan:

  1. Paperwork detailing all of the money we have, have had, and will ever have
  2. 13 forms of identification
  3. How many pieces of lumber it will take to frame the house, +/- 5
  4. What color we intend to paint the dining room
  5. Our first born child as collateral (I suppose we’ll have to offer Bu, the cat, at this time.)

That is by no means a comprehensive list. It may take us longer to get all of that together than it will to build the house.

In other news, during our car ride design plan review session on the way to visit family this weekend, we solved the butler’s pantry dilemma. The section of the house with the powder bath, pantry, butler’s pantry, and broom closet just wasn’t feeling quite right. My sister and brother-in-law suggested we get rid of the broom closet and enlarge the butler’s pantry so it is more open and inviting. Eugene (sister) said with the revised layout, she would love to come and mix drinks in that space. I agreed, because after all craft cocktails are more important than cleaning supplies.

In closing, I’d like to share a photo that will not be making the cut for our holiday card from our attempted holiday card photoshoot at the property this afternoon. We were hoping to catch the 5 minutes of Fall foliage in Tennessee as well as the golden hour lighting. There weren’t many leaves left on the trees and the sun was especially blinding, but we did manage to get a few good ones for the holiday card.