Bermuda Triangle - look no further

I've found it. It's here. Stop wondering where the mysterious Bermuda triangle is. It is in our backyard (ok, technically it is the side yard). So, our final survey is almost complete with the county. We have the go ahead from the planning department, and then the surverying department finds out that a portion of land, in the shape of a triangle, belongs to the previous owners still. Apparently we have been paying taxes on it, we never knew it existed, yet we do not have title to it. Long story. Luckily, it is a very tiny triangle, but one that needs attention - Crap.

Good news: I have been learning a lot lately about locating old deeds, going through mortgage notes, researching legal descriptions of properties, and title insurance clauses. Bad news: This stalls things momentarily. Hopefully, we will get this resolved soon and as painless as possible.

Lately we have been preparing some things for construction. We have our driveway approach widened, we moved a couple of fences (to allow for more room around the drive in garage /basement. Today, we spent 4-6 hours in Jerry's and Home Depot stores going over things that will be going into the house. This week we will have a water expert come in and test our water. Our water is a bit on the iron-y side. Prior to building, we need to see what can be done about the water (go deeper with the well, remove some of the well casing, replace the plumbing from the well to the site, new well - Ughh, etc).

It's June eh? Well, we are still full force ahead - we just seem to be moving through jello pudding -with machetes in hand.

We're still here.....

Lots of Things going on but we're still workin' away. Our driveway approach will be done soon (required when developing property). We have signed on with a local contractor to widen and pave our driveway approach (where the main road meets our driveway). About two days after we signed with a contractor we noticed the county trucks going up the road replacing culverts, widening driveway approaches, and paving them....Hmmm. I called all around trying to get the scoop on what was happening. Turns out they are resurfacing a section of the road and we are about 1 mile away from that project... I tried to get them to expand their project...not happening, Crap!! We could have had it done for FREE. Project to cost about $1,200 (I'm foreseeing the realities of the home building process flash before me...).

Zach is getting all fancy with the Auto Cad. 3D drawings, roof trusses, wall studs. He's almost done. I'll post another picture soon. We have also rearranged our bathroom upstairs (master bathroom) again, I think it is a better layout AND we managed to have room for a washer and dryer upstairs in the walk in closet. No walking up and downstairs for clean clothes. Good Stuff.

17 Door Knobs, 10 Interior Doors, 2 Sliding Doors, and 1 much needed visit to IKEA

I have a few more things added to the list. Not the purchased list, but the yes we're sure list. The front door will be a hard decision. And yes, Red is an option, or natural wood. I'll post some options. The door knob type for all interior doors is in the photo to the right ; second row, middle, black-ish (semi-aged bronze), oval shaped. I like it. I kept turning that one at the store (and no, I had no disinfectant wipes with me)...

The above doors are Therma tru brand.

We like both styles and may find more...

Bamboo Hardwood Flooring is a pretty sure.

All the windows/sliding doors will be the low E Viking Brand.

IKEA Kitchen is a for sure. I have a model on my IKEA Kitchen Planner that I'll try to post but I need to try and keep three Base cabinets from floating up the wall. They really want to be wall cabinets. I'll work on that.

Zach has all of the structural calculations done except for the roof. The floor studs are drawn in. He is now drawing in the wall studs, and the window framing. Next will be to plan out the plumbing and electrical.

I'm still moving around the master bathroom to ensure a good layout with the newly decided bathtub addition. Something like this one, but still looking.

Construction Specs spreadsheet

I've been avoiding this spreadsheet. I'm an end results kinda gal...and this spreadsheet is never ending. One of the critical pieces of information needed in planning, bidding, and constructing a home is a detailed construction specifications sheet. I've been putting it off for too long and this is the weekend to tackle it (I think). I'm not saying it will be done in a weekend, but a lot of it could be.
This spec sheet covers everything going on inside the home (ceiling height, closet sizes, door hardware, electrical outlet locations, sink fixtures, lighting fixtures, windows, insullation, EVERYTHING...). At least it's a rainy weekend. A four day weekend even. I took today off work (Monday - Holiday - no workee). I got a massage yesterday, have food stocked up, downloaded more tunes, and the treadmill is in the dining room... I'm ready... for the spreadsheet.
Some helpful websites: Saybuild.com - very good info. They also have a sample spec sheet you can download. Building Cost estimator - very rough estimates but some good information on what makes a house cost more.

Like Running for Chocolate...

Busy weekend. Zach and I started out pouring beer at our local Micro Brew Festival. Pretty fun; however, the next night was better since we got to taste some beers. One of my favorites was the 100 Meter Ale (Eugene City Brewery), and the Dry Irish Stout Collaboration Brew (Ninkasi Brewing Co.). People's Choice winners: 1st: Calapooia Brewing Co. Albany, OR (Chili Pepper IPA) 2nd: Ninkasi Brewing Co., Eugene, OR (I forget which of their beers won) and 3rd: Wakonda Brewing Co., Florence, OR (Beachcomber's Ale).

Today....I ran in the Truffle Shuffle (2 and 4 mile Run/Walk). It is a good fundraiser AND it comes with a dark chocolate Truffle at the end. I ate mine much later, after MUCH stretching. My training consisted of signing up Friday afternoon and drinking beer Saturday.

My niece's husband, Dave, inspired me to torture myself, I mean run. He recently completed two half-marathons! I would love to be able to do that. My god, that is 13 miles!! I chose the 2 mile version today and ended up finishing at 28 and something minutes. My first mile was 11 minutes and then my right leg went kinda numb (I think it was the 100 Meter Ale's fault), so I had to walk for a while. Next time, I will be better prepared.

House Progress: Zach is still plugging away at the "calculations" to verify that the house won't blow down, fall over, or lift off in the event of heavy winds/snow loads/etc. (my understanding)...

Well, 160 trees later

Weekend of planting....Okay, well, Zach was busy this weekend. I had all the intensions of helping him... I just got distracted. He loves it, really... He planted some western red cedar, ponderosa pine, giant sequoia, douglas fir, and grand fir. Most of them were planted by the creek, river, and along a certain fence line (to help block some neighbors).


Then my sister calls, who was on her way to town with "something to show us". I knew. She had a new addition to the family. Her first real vehicle....It is a sweet ride, Jeep Liberty. We took a couple rides, ate lots of food, laughed, watched a couple of superbowl commercials, drank....great weekend.

Change is good

I have always liked change. I proceded with my quarterly office remodel today followed by a small change to this site. You may see more changes in the future, so don't get attached to any specific layout or color. There are many template options from Blogger that are available at the click of a button. I could easily see myself changing the fonts, colors, and templates often.

I've been trying to fit more onto my site like small spreadsheets on the sides. There is a good blog that I've been following, savvy saver, which is pretty interesting.

I'm going to try and keep a log of the associated costs for building a house for a couple of reasons. For one, it is a good record of what we spent our money on. Two, I hope to help educate others because after searching for months and months I found it nearly impossible to get an idea of what it costs to build a house. I realize there are many unknowns, but something would be helpful.

Tomorrow, we get up at 6:00 a.m. to get in line to buy seedling trees at the annual tree seedling sale. They have good trees and they are reasonably pricesd. We usually end up buying 50 - 300 (Ughh, then we have to plant them!).