Let the Building Begin!

The plans for our home have arrived! Our builder is submitting them for plan review for our building permit. Once we get the permit, we can start pouring the foundation. There are a few tweaks we are going to make to our plan, but the plan itself is pretty easy. The big square above the garage is our master bathroom which I have to (ahem..get to) design. We are going to have a toilet closet, a walk in clothes closet, walk in tile shower with 2 shower heads and a corner bench, and our double sink vanity. This is my template to play with and figure out a couple designs for final (Jason's) approval. This is probably the funnest part of our build so far. Hopefully our builder will break ground in the next week and get the site ready.

Stick a fork in it 'cause it's DONE

We signed papers this morning! We finally can start moving dirt and getting our house built. The flood of emotions is pretty crazy..excited, nervous, happy, anxious, worried, you name it. :) Next step is to let the builder know we have the funds so he can start digging out foundation and ordering permits & plans. Yippee!

Closing Time!

Things are finally moving along on our loan! The appraiser upped his suggested $$ amount so we went to final underwriting/approval and are just awaiting the settlement documents to be finalized and we can sign on the dotted line! :) This has been a long process, but I am feeling thismuchcloser to our new house and finally putting down roots. We are really enjoying our town. I can't believe we've been here for over 6 months now. We were walking the track the other night and Jason and I were both agreeing that it feels like we've just moved here, but it also feels like we've lived here our whole lives. The people here are great. They get involved in the kids' education, sports, activities, etc. We've had more to do in this little town than we ever did in Yakima. I am sure Yakima had lots to offer, but it was offered to 90,000 people at a time. We met with our builder last night to finalize our contract and just talking to him and his wife, I am so excited the things they have planned for our house. He seems excited to build our house. We are using a premade plan, but we will tweak a few things here and there. I love the fact that we can move any interior walls we want. He will chalk them out and we can change them on the spot. I have to get busy designing my bathroom. I have to fit a walk in closet, double vanity, toilet closet, and walk in tile shower into a room about 15x9 ft. It will be the focal point of our house. The kids are excited about the new place because they'll actually have a flat place to play and put up the pool and all that good stuff. Right now the snakes are coming out and we are surrounded by almost 4 ft tall grass so they are limited to playing. There was a snake hiding under the trampoline yesterday. Ick! This week is a crazy week for us. 4 ball games, grandparents visiting this weekend, closing on our loan, and having our A/C fixed too. I can't wait until we break ground on our place, because I know in a blink of an eye, it will be finished. I'll make sure to take lots of photos and post them on here. Enjoy!

Red Door??

So, I am thinking of having a red front door in our new house. These are some door styles I found that I like. I am wondering if the red door has been overdone already. Maybe I should stick with a standard wood finish??

Great news!

The ammended appraisal report should be in by Monday afternoon, so we are set to close this next week on our construction loan! I can't believe it's finally here. Not looking forward to handing over a huge chunk of money, but this is our dream and it's finally coming true. Wish I had more pics to post about the house, but for now, it's still an empty lot. :)

Good news??

I really like this patio door. Our floor plan has a door exiting the dining room onto a back patio. I want a door that I can see through and that I can attach a screen door to.

I am SO ready to close on this loan! Ready to start digging and picking out colors and lighting and carpet and tile and shiny appliances and....

Hopefully our appraisal value is going up and we will be able to close by end of next week. In the meantime, I am researching all the goodies we get to place in our new house. Picking out door handles, cabinet pulls, pendant lights, entry chandelier, and bathroom lighting is going to suck! So many choices. I really like the look of brushed nickel, but also really like this wrought iron look. What do ya think??

Appraisal is in

The appraisal came back lower than we had hoped, but we are hoping to still salvage this deal. I don't feel the appraiser really factored in the products, finishes, and upgrades that we are going to have compared to the other homes he used in his comparison (one of which was a GoldenWest manufactured home) How does manuf. compare to stick built at all? Our builder has offered to walk the appraiser through a recent home he built with the same finishes and products he will be using for ours. I am sure the appraiser's job wasn't easy, appraising a home that isn't built yet, but still, we gave him all the information he needed to make a sound decision and it wasn't a very good one. It doesn't help that homes just don't move in this town, not a lot of sales or new construction to compare to so he used comparables from towns over an hour away. I feel confident that the bank will still take a chance on us because I am sure they know it will appraise higher once actually constructed. Let's keep our fingers crossed this all works out!