July 8-10, 2013 ~ Decisions, digging and pouring

July 8, 2013 ~ Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Ted and I met with Laura, our former realtor and Matt's wife. She is also MK's designer. We met her at our local Pella distributor and made the fun decisions of: entry door, windows, patio door (for the walk-out in basement) and deck door (from dining room to the deck). For the windows, deck door and patio door, we just went with what was already bid for us just to keep it easy (and, of course, to stick to the budget).

• Windows - Pella ProLine Series. These are the good ol' wooden casement windows.
• Patio Door and Deck Door - can you guess? Yep - Pella ProLine series for the patio door and deck door as well! The deck door is only a single door...not double like the link shows.
• Entry Door - we went with the Pella's European 3/4 light 8" entry door. It's massive and I can't wait to see it. We went with the flourish glass, so it still allow in light but offer privacy as well.

 After Pella (BTW the salesman was really impressed how quickly we made decisions and said that we were probably the quickest meeting he has had - Go us!!) we went to 84 lumber to make the decisions on siding color, soufet color, interior doors, doorknobs, stair railing and decking. We were in and out within 40 minutes....we're quick like that :) Here were our choices:

• Siding - James Hardie Cement Board Lap Siding in Iron Gray.
• Soffit and Fascia - Quality Edge in White
• Interior Doors - Masonite 2 panel interior doors (these will be painted to match our trim in the house)
• Doorknobs - Schalge Merano in Brushed Nickel
• Base Trim - Empire 512 E2E (sorry - no link for this one)
• Stair rail - It's a squiggle :)
• Deck - we are going with good ol' fashion cedar

Our last stop of the day was at Briggs, where Ted knew the saleswoman, Lindsey, since he works with her all the time with his job. So she had our bid and went through everything that we had picked out originally (benefit of marrying a plumber, he knows what he wants and we had these fixtures picked out for the bid).

• Kitchen Sink - Blanco...not sure on color yet as we'll need to decide on countertops first
• Toilets - a toilet is a toilet right? Kohler Sterling Elongated Comfort Height is the techinical name :)
• Master Bathroom - Moen Voss (separate handles) -
• Hall Bathroom - Moen Voss (single handle)
• Kitchen Faucet - Moen Motion Sense
• Bathroom Sinks - Kohler white under mount
• Master Bathtub - Bain Ultra Thermal Corner Tub (so excited for this thing!!!!)
• Hall Bathtub - Kohler 60" white tub

 All in all, we started at 2:30 pm at Pella and ended at 5:30 pm at Briggs. Not too bad!!!
It was so nice to get these decisions made and out of the way.  



July 9, 2013 ~ Digging begins!!! 

Today we met at Union Bank and signed our construction loan. And we also purchased the lot from MK.

We got a nice surprise today. Matt from MK called and said "Your basement is being dug today". I was on cloud 9 all day today. I couldn't wait to get done at the bank and get out to the lot and see everything.

I wasn't disappointed!

  Ted put up his trail camera so that we can get pictures as workers are at the lot. We got this shot of the bull-dozer.

 We have a driveway!!

 

Our basement

                                                                 Our basement

                                                                       Our storm shelter

July 10, 2013 ~ Footings are poured!!!

Footings poured and rebar up for walls

Where the garage will be  

Highlights:

• July 8, 2013 – Ted and I picked out siding and soffit colors, windows, entry door, patio doors, exterior doors, interior doors, doorknobs, pantry door, stair railings.
• July 9, 2013 – Construction loan begins
                         Bought lot from MK
                         Basement was dug
• July 10, 2013 – footings were poured

•  

The building process begins!

 

Ted and I always wanted to build our next home. It’s always been our dream. However, we never thought that dream would be attainable because we didn’t think we’d be able to afford it. At least not right now. We figured it would be something we’d be able to do in 10+ years. We had already been pre-approved for a mortgage loan, so we knew where our maximum price point was. We just never believed we’d be able to build a home for that same price. We were wrong! :)

We began speaking to our builder, MK Builders Inc. Ted’s company is actually a sub-contractor for MK, so Ted knew their work ethic and quality of homes they built. We spoke to a few other builders at our local Home and Garden Show. We knew we’d be building with MK, but it was still nice to get some ideas from other local builders. Matt from MK made us feel welcomed and he was very informative on the process as well as answered all of our questions and concerns. I had a lot of fears of building, mostly “how in the heck are we going to afford this” so having Matt explain everything was extremely helpful.

Our journey with building began in February 2013. Ted and I had decided to put our home on the market so that we could start the process of building our new home. Much to our excitement, and shock, we sold our home eight days after we put the sign in the yard! We listed our house February 14, 2013, (romantic right?) and accepted an offer February 22nd. We were to close on our house March 29th (ironically, we closed on that house March 27, 2009 and moved the last item out of that house March 27, 2013).

Our house on Dunn (Rainey is in her favorite spot in that house – by the front door

checking out the neighborhood).

 

 

We began our search for our next home looking on the internet for homes for sale. Mostly what we found were houses that needed way to much work for way to much money. It was frustrating. So we decided to look into building after we talked to our realtor, Laura, who happens to be Matt’s wife.

MK told us to look at a local drafting company’s website for floor plans. We found eight floor plans that we liked. So one night we sat down and went over all of them and narrowed them down to our top three choices. Talk about a tough decision!! We liked them all, there were aspects of each one that we loved. With the remaining three, we listed the pro’s and con’s of each design. We sat and discussed those three choices and agreed on our number one choice. We had found a winner!

 

 

March 15, 2013 we went and looked at a little Australian Shepherd puppy named Jaeger. He was a black tri and was ready to go to his forever home. Ted and I fell in love with him right away, especially because he kept leaving his siblings to come and cuddle with us. We left him with his siblings that night and came back to pick him up the following morning. That was the day Rosco came into our lives.

 

            
                Isn’t he cute?!?!?!

March 23, 2013, Ted and I began moving into our apartment. We ended up getting a one bedroom apartment at a pet friendly community. It was a big down-grade from our three bedroom house, but we figured it was only temporary. It definitely feels like the walls are closing in at times, but we are making do just fine.

March 26, 2013 we took the plan to MK and told Matt what changes we wanted. Straighten the garage, extend the laundry room so that we could include a mud room as well, move the pantry to the corner of the kitchen to make a walk-in pantry, and extend the shower in the master bathroom to make it a walk-in shower. Everything else stayed the same. I just LOVE this house plan.

The bidding process took a lot longer than we hoped it would have. It was suppose to take two weeks but because of the Lincoln Parade of Homes, it took six! And when we received the bid for our home, it was WAY over our budget. It was frightening…I wanted to walk away from building all together after hearing that figure and go back to looking for a house to buy.

Ted and I went over our proposal and found areas to cut out or reduce the allowances in order to get the bid to where we needed it. Luckily, with the sweat equity we plan on putting into the house, and the down payment, we were going to be okay. So we started getting the house plan and contract finalized.

Luckily for us, finding a lot was easy. MK actually owned the perfect lot in Weindelin Estates near Blue Stem Lake. We looked at a few other lots, but they quickly sold, so we decided that the lot MK owned was the best one for our needs, so we decided to purchase it from them. Since MK owned the lot, once we gave them the money down, the permits began to get pulled and the work began.

We staked and roped off the area where the house would sit the last week of June. Then we just had to wait for all the permits to come in. While we waited, we worked with Taylor at Union Bank for our construction loan. We were approved and went signed our lives away for the construction loan on July 9, 2013. That same day we made our first draw for the lot and was the day we officially broke ground! It was great to have everything finally start!

Our lot view from the creek

Our lot view looking towards the creek

 

 

 

Highlights:

• February 14, 2013 – house on Dunn put on the market
• February 22, 2013 – offer accepted on Dunn house
• March 29, 2013 – closed on Dunn house
• March 26, 2013 – began process with MK Builders
• June 26, 2013 – staked and roped off are where future home will sit on lot