When Will Our Loan Close?

And when can we start building our house? Steven and I have been working on this project nigh on 2.5 years now. We bought our land on Whidbey Island almost 2 years ago. It took us 7 months to get it perked - before we agreed to buy it. We have two lots, each a little over .5 acres. We can now say we own "acreage" on Whidbey Island. It's so weird to think that a little over an acre is alot of land. We had nearly 4 acres in New England. Growing up, my parents had 10 acres. It goes to show you how much things have changed!

We had a false start last year getting the house going. We got the pricing back on the house we designed (see picture at left) and almost lost our teeth when both our jaws collided on the floor. The price of land and the cost of building here is just ridiculous! So, we downsized. We realized once we had the permit for the first design that neither of the children would be living with once the house was built. We went from 2500 to 1800 sq. ft. It's a much more manageable size house - all on one floor. I'm hoping we'll grow old here!

I can hardly wait to get this project started. We've done so much research, looked at so many types of siding, decking, flooring, countertops, tile, paint colors, fireplaces... Enough already!

Steve and I are doing a large chunk of the work ourselves. When we moved to the island we had thoughts of having a construction business. We'd done remodeling before and even helped Steven's sister and brother-in-law build a custom home on the south end of the island when we first landed here. With that project, we quickly realized that we didn't want a steady diet of hammers and saws. Well, we'll have a steady diet of it for the next 12-15 months.

It gets even better... We're moving into the "twinkie" as my kids most affectionately call our 28' camper, a 1976 Argosy by Airstream. We've spent most of the summer renovating the thing and it's still not what I would call liveable. It leaks like a sieve and it's too cold and wet to do anything about it right now. We'll probably have to build a carport for it so that we don't drown in the middle of the night!

It sounds like I'm totally against the camper idea, but I think it will be okay. I won't have much to clean. There's no room for a tv to distract us, and it will be right on site. There is nothing worse than having to go out after you get home from work to go to work on a building project several miles away. I think it will be just the right kind of uncomfortable to make us work day and night to get the house done fast!

I'll try to find a picture of the twinkie to post. More later...