Survey

We are getting ready to finalize our floorplan so the next step is going to be getting an engineered storm water drainage plan (i.e. just another way to pay money), engineered septic design, and an abbreviated site plan.  In order to begin that process, we need to know our exact property boundries.

We only have a neighbor, Steve, to our west and an easement on the east.  I talked with Steve and see where an old marker was but Steve said the property line was at a completely different bearing than what I was seeing on the county parcel map.  So, I had to call a surveyor (more $$) to come out and officially mark our property.  Well it turns out that Steve was probably using a bearing that was lined up from a corner stake and a surveyor marker (just a reference point, nothing more) which is definitely not on the right bearing.

Setting up equipment

Bushwhacking to set official line markers

The surveyor, Jeff, was a super nice guy and was out there for a couple hours getting everything marked out so we now have official property boundries and corner markers to take measurements for the site plan.

Once the weather clears, John and I will mark out our rear property line where we are adjacent.  The great thing is that we don't have to worry about our rear neighbors encroaching and building a fence since we will be sharing access to the 10 acres.

East property line staked

West property line staked

Now that we have the official line, good news and bad news!!

Good news is that we got back about 30' width that we weren't absolutely sure if we owned or not. 

Bad news is that we got alot more area to clear underbrush in the front part of the property.  :-)

Weekend Work

Another weekend and some more work.  Since we don't have any family living anywhere close to us, we have to either hire sitters so the wife (C) and I can both work or split duties.  Right now, I usually work both days and our son (B) has to work a minimum of four hours per weekend. Our daughter (S) is really too little to do much but we try to have her out ther 1-2 hours per weekend depening on weather.

This weather this weekend was mixed - Saturday good, Sunday raining.  B and I had a late start because we hit a show in the morning while C and S went to a high school dance competition ... S had a blast :-)

B and I worked on clearing out branches left over from all the limbing up that I have been doing.  Because the area was so crowded and sunlight limited, lots of dead branches so those have to be removed.  We were only able to get about 3.5 hours in.

On Sunday, it was rainy but the show must go on.  I worked alone :-( but was able to get quite a bit done.  Worked mainly on clearing out underbrush in one section so I could see marked progress instead of a little bit in many areas.  I also fell three more trees and limbed them up.  The brush pile is now about 30' x 30' x 5'.

A couple days ago, John (property adjacent to ours) and I met with a guy to see what he would charge to bring in a 20ton excavator to do site clearing (remove remaining old growth stumps that I couldn't pull out and leveling out the ground).  We asked him how much to do both our properties and he hasn't given a hard quote yet, he just said "we'll work something out". 

Today, I met with a guy that has done a couple other sites and has equipment within the development so no fees to transport.  He gave me a price of ~ $1500 per lot which was a little higher than I planned.  Going to call the first guy back and see if he will do both lots for $2000 and go from there. 

Creating the Budget

Where do I start.  This is probably the hardest part of the whole process because I want to make sure I'm very thorough ... so we don't get to the end and need to sell the kids on eBay to finish paying for the house.  Actually eBay and Craigslist but I digress.

I downloaded some templates over at the OwnerBuilder site that was a good start for building a starting a point.  Jo-Lynn over at http://nwforeverhome.wordpress.com/ (A must read - she is awesome) was a great help as well. 

At this point, the main budget page is about 400 lines (excel) and there are about 12 tabs of more detail supporting information (e.g. concrete calculations, inspection schedules, trim calcs, labor estimates, etc).  Is it overkill, probably, but it gives me confidence that we are on the right track and be able to justify the numbers to the bank for the construction loan.  I still make small tweaks, last night I added some calculations for line items that are pure sweat equity labor and sweat equity cash so I can deduct those from the overall total.  Also added in the mortgage payment calcs so it is easy to see the monthly payment as I play with individual line items.

The budget is definitely way above what we planned but I know I have room to 'play' as I've allocated some big chunks to landscaping (we will do all of it), decks (we will do), and contingency.  Once we get final blueprints and can start getting more accurate bids then I will have a clearer picture.

Starting The Design Process

During the 60+ day feasibility study that started back in Oct and up until now, we started designing our house plan.  I pulled out a posterboard and started hand sketching a layout.  After a couple days, we agreed on the layout and then purchased Home Designer Architect after reading lots of reviews/recommendations and dug in.  Even though the software was only $200, it has a ton of options and capabilities above what I need (at this point).  I would buy it again.

After 'transferring' the layout into the software program,

it need a bit of tweaking to get rooms lined up, better use of dimensions, etc.  I spent countless hours and about 20 revisions before we finally got to the point where we 'signed off'.

 

At that point, I needed to get a professional to review, comment, update so we could get to the construction doc (i.e. blueprint) stage.  I contacted the builder of our current house, who is a designer, and started working with him.  The roof lines were a mess so that was his first order of business to simplify and then tweak the layout for better symmetry, flow, and support structure.  After about a week, we got a front elevation

 

 

and then the following week an updated floor plan.  It had some changes from our layout but nothing dramatic.  The front elevation has changed as well but it still needs some work.  It looks more like a farm house than a rustic wooded retreat.  I took it home and we went over it in detail that resulted in about 25 items we wanted to change or modify.

During the houseplan development and clearing the property (and in our copius spare time), we have been scouring magazines, websites, forums, etc to get ideas for the new house.  While it has been fun and exciting, it is totally overwhelming and exhausting.  Choices, choices, choices!!

I am a very analytical person so I have to have everything organized into separate folders based on category - the stack is about 6-8" at this point - but most of the folders are spread out on the office floor for easy access :-)

Neighbors

On the first day we actually found this development, there were four elk that walked through the property.  Since then, we have seen deer and elk on a regular basis and have heard there is a large kitty cat around although we haven't seen it (did see a large paw print)

As we were wrapping up the other day, a herd ran about 20' in front of us.  There were at least 8-10 cows but I'm sure the bull was close.

Driveway

It is so funny to think about how excited we got to have easy to our property.  It took 12 yards of 1 1/4" crusher run and 30' of 12" drain pipe.  Once we start getting ready to build then I will put in the quarry spalls but at least we can drive across without using the 4WD.



Took about 30 min just to dig out the 6" area underneath the pipe, the ground has TONS of rock

First load of gravel

We now have a nice compacted 30' access

 

 

 

Clearing continued

 

 

The kids have a love hate relationship with the new property - they love to go out there and head out "on adventures" through the woods but they hate working :-)  

Over the past week, we have been busy making progress with lots of smaller areas like pulling branches, limbing up dead branches, picking out huge rocks, clearing paths in the woods, .... Visual progress has been slower since I've cleared about 99% of the trees in the building site plan leaving another 4 1/2 acres of trees. 

It has been very rewarding to see the fruits of our labor; almost like pioneers although as my son says "so much easier with a chain saw and a Dingo".  I couldn't agree more.

Love using equipment instead of horses

Five chains, five quarts of chain oil, two gallons of gas, views .... priceless

 

 

 

Starting to look accessible

 

Firewood pile started

We are limited to cutting down no more than 5000' board feet per year but once I'm done clearing, I will be about 3500' - 4000'



Clearing started

The house location that was already cleared was nice and we planned to locate it there and then clear some trees to the east to put the shop.  Well, after I fell about 15 trees, the awesome view that other lots had that we assumed would be ours as well was not.  We would be looking a large powerline tower that would become visible if I continued taking trees down.  So, that caused a pause and some rethinking of the site plan.

Ultimately we decided to flip the house and shift it toward the east and locate the shop in the previously cleared area.  This will provide a better view out the back, allow for a circular drive, and give more flat area for a huge yard for the kids.  We wont have as awesome of a view but that isn't why we are moving out in the 'sticks'.

I've cleared about 30 trees that will be used for firewood and have a HUGE brush pile that will be chipped for mulch.  Currently the brush pile is being used as secret hideouts :-)

 

Thanks John for pulling those chains for me

 

 

The brush pile from the first day, it is now about 5x larger ... nice future mulch pile.

The Beginning

A little background that started our journey ...

We have been living in our current house for about 7 years and have really enjoyed our neighborhood/location. However, over the past two years the Home Owners Association (HOA) have become more difficult to deal with and they are causing many issues within the neighborhood. From the day we moved in, we have parked our RV on our property behind a fence and was given approval from the HOA at that point in time.  Fast forward two years and the new HOA board decided that the definition of screening of recreational vehicles now means completely hidden within an enclosed structure.  Some members on the board actually told me that their goal was to rid the neighborhood of all boats, trailers, RVs, etc.  I spent $1000 on Leyland Cypress trees that provided excellent screening and you could just barely see small sections of the RV through the branches … not good enough for them.  If I didn’t move the RV then they were going to put a lien on the house so it is currently parked at a friends house.  A couple other things happened and with many of our neighbors moving, we (I) started looking at property around our area to build a house ... I grew up on a couple hundred acres so have always wanted some amount of land.

After searching for hours and hours, I mapped out about 10 possibilities and we drove around one weekend to check things out.  Every single one had some kind of issue (i.e. severe slops, neighboring properties, price, etc) but we stumbled upon a gated community that had 5 acre parcels.  First thought was I don't want a neighborhood again but checked it out anyway.  Wow.

Only about 50 sites, paved roads, wells already dug/tested, power/phone available, heavily treed lots and awesome views.  Talked to the listing agent and found out the owners allow 60 days to do all checks on whatever you want before signing papers.  During the 80 days (some back and forth that made it take longer), we got agreement on RV parking, costs, building requirements, etc.  We signed end of December and will start building May/June timeframe.

Some of our friends are also buying a lot and will back up against ours so there will be 10 acres between us and an easement on our left so no one can build there either.

Looking toward the property from the driveway entrance
 

 

Original cleared are for house but this will now become yard