Snow, Surveying, and Shopping

Snow has come and stayed. We aren't getting much done outside so we have been checking in with the surveryor. He will be done in a week or two. The survey is being done to officially split one big lot into two. The two lots have been taxed separately for years, they each have a house, and they are zoned differently; however, they have never been officially 2 legal lots. One is farm zoned one is rural residential. Because of the split zoning, we were able to officially split the one big legal lot into two legal lots. This will also allow for a smoother construction loan transaction.

I applied for a preliminary partition to get the split going back in June of 2005. It was approved through the county in September of 2005. A final partition is now needed and part of that will be to get a survey done and recorded. After some researching and recommendations, we hired a land surveyor, Donn Rowe in November of 2006. He has been out putting up pink flagging all over the property. It is pretty interesting what he does. I think we are getting more property (from an adjacent neighbor) according to the flagging.

Anyways, once the Surveying is complete (one or two weeks) I will do the paperwork and get a final partition going. Then we are on our way to apply for building permits....

Oh, Shopping. We have been going to our local home improvement store, Jerry's Home Improvement Center, to get pricing for everything (faucets, door knobs, tubs, EVERYTHING). I think they (the sales associates) are beginning to think we go there for a social kind of thing. We go there for hours on end, drink coffee, walk around and ...okay so maybe it is our only type of social function...whatever, not what I was trying to get at. Anyways, for a good bid from a builder you need to have a good description (construction specifications) of everything. To stay within our budget we need to price almost every item and pick and choose wisely.