Leaning on the Finiancial Sides of the Box. Chpt #6

What started out as purchasing a $230,000 house has turned into building a $253,000 house. Yea - we're leaning on that financial box. I hope the sides are sturdy because we're both leaning hard. But so far we're keeping both feet INSIDE that box . . . . . . . so far!

Reality is setting in financially as we met for a semi-final meeting Friday AND made finalization on spending MORE money to get the current house ready for market.

Friday we met with the Dream Team (Marcia Merrill our agent- Century 21 Tri-County Real Estate (left), Kevin Kleckner - Ambiance Homes, the builder (right) and Jon Meister, Starritt Meister Realty (middle), his agent) to go over exactly what we wanted. As we were going into the office Marcia (our truely wonderful agent) stops and say's "you know your taxes will be about $6000". We both go "OK" and make a "yea, we know" reply and as she turns around we give each other wide eyed horror look. YIKES

As you remember we are building a semi-custom built home from basically a model. Except we wanted a few tweaks.

The main customizations were:

1. sunroom/breakfast nook needed to be 4 feet larger,

2. Three windows needed to me installed on the sides of the house. I can not fathom a house with no windows on the sides, might as well live in an apartment if you can not get cross ventilation. $1350ish

3. More brick. We did not like just having a few slabs of brick on the front of the house, it looks fake (which it is). Why not have that brick turn the corner of the garage wall and extend towards the front door. YEA - it'll cost an extra $5000 but will look great.

Those were the MAIN concerns along with the actual "elevation". Not sure WHY it is called elevation when you are talking about what "look" you want the house to have. As you will see in the previous blog, there are three "elevations" and the one we wanted is an extra $4,500.

So we went over everything including many little things, like where to put the outdoor faucets (back left, front right) and the need for an outdoor electrical outlet on the roof (Christmas decorations - bet many people do not think of THAT one). And we would like a 2 foot overhang in the back instead of the standard 1 foot or 18 inch's.

So with that it was back to the drawing board for more final numbers.

For all you guys thinking about building a house there are MANY things I am leaving out. Placement of electrical outlets, placement of windows and so forth, it is amazing how many details there are. I'm a computer programmer and know all about details in MY line of work but I took everything for granted in a house.

Remember - EVERYTHING needs to be placed. There are a lot of default things but you will still be asked if you want something different. Light switch here? here? higher? lower? on this wall? on that wall?

It's like we're in Dr. Suess land.

SO now we wait again.

MEANWHILE - back at the ranch we got our estimate for having five rooms and ceilings with a basement floor cleaned and painted and many holes patched from old curtain rods. YIKES.

We also got the estimate for having a new vanity, flooring, counter top and faucet installed in our bathroom, YIKES.

I spent the weekend in the garage filling boxes with toxic chemicals as it seems the past owners (DJ's parents) loved to collect insect killer and others scary stuff. Six box's worth. Problem is Clean Sweep is closed until May so we will have to have them in the garage during showings. Hmmmmmm

We also fixed lots of little things that we could live with but were to lazy to fix. . UNTIL NOW! DJ spent time decluttering hampers and closets and getting extra cooking things we never use out of the way. She also spent time in the basement getting 40 tons of unused camping equipment put away.

It's all coming together slowly.

Suggestion - make a list of all the little things you have to do. If you keep everything in your head it becomes just a HUGE mess but a list keeps it all on paper and you can see progress . . . . not that we did that but it would be a good idea! DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO!

So that is where we're at. Doing STUFF in the house and waiting for final building stuff.

OH - one thing we're waiting on is how much of a down payment we will need to make. It was suggested that it would be in the <$15,000 range YIKES but doable. All I know is that the first day they start to dig that hole we are opening some Champaign to celebrate! AND I'LL HAVE PHOTOS! They expect to have the house build late May depending on weather. And I have not even TOUCHED all my thoughts on landscaping. Did I mention I want to plant an Autumn Blaze Maple (2003 Urban Tree of the Year).

OH - I have ideas baby!!!

If you want a REAL good book on gardens and landscaping I picked this up at Half Price Books for $6 (great deal, $14 on Amazon). It’s called Home Landscaping, Midwest Region, Including Southern Canada - by Creative Homeowner. You can find this for all regions. The reason I like this is shown on this page.

It tells you exactly what flowers/plants they use, how many plants and lots of great ideas. Each idea will be for full sun and then the same idea but with shade plants and so forth.

For me it is exactly what I was looking for, no more random flowers in random places.

More later this week.

Building is MUCH more fun then selling!

Rod and DJ.