We Have a Hole!

So they dug our basement yesterday, Sept. 24th. Not only did Brad get an email from our Realtor Glenn, but I also got updates from my friends that drove by. I feel so lucky to have friends who are excited for me! Sheree and Kathy you rock!
Brad and I stopped by today to take pics....he wouldn't let me jump in the hole, so i had to climb the big pile of dirt....he assures me i can go down there when they pour the foundation...little does he know I have plans to stop by tomorrow...hope i can get out by myself!

More upgrade news

We've found out some more information on our potential upgrades.

Front Door: 

Our front door system will look a lot like this

I really wanted an nicer front door, but that's not going to happen.  The standard door is an inexpensive steel model. It's a nice door system, it includes sidelites and a transom, but cheap steel looks like cheap steel and I was hoping we could upgrade to a fiberglass door that looked like wood.  One of the first things I notice about any house is the quality of the front door and in my opinion, a nice front door adds immeasurably to the curb appeal of any house.  Plus, although we're not building the nicest house in the world, it is fairly upscale and we're making a real effort to use quality finishes where we can.  With our hardwood floors, stone tile, granite, etc... extending that level of finish to the exterior door would have been great.  Sadly, it looks like it's just too expensive.   Our cost to upgrade to a fiberglass door system is close to $2000 and we simply don't have room for that in the budget.   So we'll stick with the standard steel door, although we may end up getting a door model with a few glass inserts in it to class it up just a little.  That should be fairly inexpensive.

Windows in master bedroom:

Master Bedroom Floorplan

One of the things we are considering is adding a few windows to the master bedroom.  Of course the bedroom already includes one large window, but we also have a very lage, solid and bare exterior wall on the west side of the room.  We are considering adding some windows to that wall.  Since we plan to put our bed there, we're thinking either tall skinny windows brackting the bed (where night stands would go) or long narrow window(s) above the headboard.  The pricing came back on those and they are very affordable... now we just have to decide if we want them!  Without a doubt they would make the exterior more interesting, but do they work on the interior?  Or would it be better to have that wallspace.   I go back and forth, and Theresa doesn't seem to have a clear opinion either.   If you have any thoughts, please leave a comment! (see picture)

Hardwood Staircase:

Curved wood staircase

Since we're doing wood throughout the first floor and we plan on replacing the upstairs carpet with hardwood sooner or later, it stands to reason that the staircase needs to be wood eventually as well.  Staircases, especially curved ones like ours, are a lot. of. work.  (read: I don't want to do it myself) So we looked into having the stairs built with hardwood treads instead of carpeted plywood.  It's not cheap.  The cost is over $2,000 and although that number causes my physical pain... I think we have to find a way to work it into the budget.  For one thing, I REALLY don't want to have to resurface those stairs someday.  It's just a lot of tedious work and the material cost alone probably would approach that same 2,000 number for me, and if I'm already going to be shelling out $$ and time to install wood upstairs, the last thing I want to do is add to that project.  In addition to that, our stairs curve around a bit and will face the front door.  Having an entire first floor of hardwood and then seeing carpeted stairs the instant you walk in the front door seems..... off to me.  I think it will look weird.  Plus hardwood staircases look HAWT, so... we're very likely going to bite the bullet on this one.

The good news is... the bleeding should be over.  We now pretty much know every selection and upgrade we're going to make and what that will cost us and we have everything budgeted. (to the extent that we can) We still don't' know for sure what the tile + installation will cost us, but we have a pretty good rough estimate, and we may still upgrade the faucets and do something (ie - accent walls, or a few different color rooms) with the painter, but I don't anticipate either of those being major expenses.

Still haven't started....

It's been about 2 weeks since we've gotten the permit and we still haven't really started construction.  One of the main things that was holding us back was a utility pole.   DTE had some equipment on a pole that had to be moved before the excavator could dig out the foundation hole (I'm glad *WE* weren't paying for that...) and that was apparently not a trivial thing to get done.  The good news is that we've received word that it's been taken care of and we're good to begin construction as soon as they can schedule the excavator.   The bad news is that the weather forecast is "rainy mess" for the next week, so it might be a while longer before mother nature allows this process to get off of the ground.  Hopefully it won't be too much longer, I want the foundation poured before it starts to get too cold to ensure that the concrete is mixed and cures properly.

It's too far away!

I'm really starting to think that this house is going to be too far away from my job.  :( :(  

I live about 10-12 miles away from my job right now (depending on the route I take).  With traffic and the fact that I have to take a bunch of side roads, it takes me about 20 minutes in the morning and 25-30 minutes to get home at night.  

The new house will be about 16-17 miles away, and although the roads are a bit more major and I should be able to travel a bit more speedily... I'm probably looking at 25-30 minutes in the morning and 35-45 minutes at night.    I do have the option of taking expressway for about 90% of the drive, that increases the distance to 20 miles, but if I'm going at time when traffic isn't an issue, it may be the best bet. 

 Now that extra 10 minutes might not seem like much, but as it turns out where I live right now is probably a *little* further than I'd like to be.  It's about perfect in the morning, but about 5 minutes too long at night, so adding 10 minutes onto that, twice a day, every day.... does not make me happy.  In fact, it's depressing me quite a bit.  That's 20-30 minutes every day, or 2-2.5 hours per week, that I could be doing something that I don't hate (and I do hate driving with the fiery intensity of 10,000 burning suns)  not to mention all of the extra gas and vehicle wear that will accrue over time.  

I did consider this before we decided to build, but I kinda convinced myself that it wouldn't be a big deal... and now I'm kinda convinced that it will be.    Theresa did try to address it with me, but she just mentioned it once or twice and then gave up, she needs to learn to be more forceful, not give up and make me confront this stuff that I just dismiss when I get stubborn! :)  

We don't really have a lot of options on where to live.   Theresa works on the east side, and possible will have to move to a new school even further east and/or north at some point.  I work on the west side.  Between her work and my work we have Madison Heights, Clawson, (cities we really don't have a desire to live in)   Royal Oak (which we love, but the houses are generally small and/or older and that' quite a drive for Theresa) Birmingham or Bloomfield Hils (too pricey) and Troy... which is pretty clearly the best fit.  So I'm confident we made the right decision in terms of the overall city. But Troy is a lot bigger than I initially gave it credit for and I would be a lot happier if this house were on the west side, or even in the center instead of on the very east side.  That extra 2-5 miles is a big deal.  

But the opportunity presented itself where it did and now here I am.  I suppose I could always get a new job... but I don't want to.  However, it is pretty much a given that at some point I *will* change jobs and the Troy location gives me easy access to that I-75 corridor and all of the jobs in Troy, Auburn Hills, Sterling Heights, Southfield, Birmingham, Rochester and even Downtown Detroit.  It's a pretty good location from a tech job standpoint.    I'm not sure it's quite as good as being in the Novi/Canton/Livonia/Dearborn/Ann Arbor cluster.... but it's close.  

Maybe it won't be that bad.  A lot of people have a commute that's a lot longer than 16 miles and 30-45 minutes and they survive.   I just don't want to be one of them. 

Maybe I can just get a new Corvette... it won't do anything for the distance I'll be driving or the  time I'll spend doing it... but it will do a hell of a lot for my disposition.  Except the huge flaw in that plan is that I'm spending all my money building the house and that leaves very little left for expensive toys... even if they are pushing close to 400hp.  

Bathrooms

You always hear that kitchens and bathrooms are the most important and valuable rooms in houses, so after we figured the kitchen design out, we turned our attention to designing the bathrooms.
the house has 2.5 bathrooms, with a toilet and sink downstairs, a "guest" bathroom upstairs with a tub/shower, sink and toilet upstairs, and the master bath off of the master bedroom with dual sinks, toilet, shower and soaking tub.   As an added bonus, the basement comes pre-plumbed for a 3 piece bathroom, but we certainly don't need to figure out any sort of design for that right now.

The downstairs bathroom is pretty simple and doesn't have much "design" to it.  Our main goal here is just to make it flow with the rest of the downstairs, so we'll likely just continue the wood floor and paint color into that bathroom.  We briefly considered putting some travertine tile in this bathroom, but at the end of the day we figured that the door to that room would probably be open 95% of the time and it would just look better if we didn't have a transition.   This bathroom will have a pedestal sink, so we don't have any counter/vanity choices to make here.  We like pedestal sinks, but we recently saw a house that had one of those trendy "vessel" sinks in the downstairs bathroom, which I thought was a pretty great idea.  We really like vessel sinks, but we're concerned that they will look dated in 5-10 years.  Putting one in the powder room keeps the "pretty" confined to one small bathroom that will be seen by company, and it will be cheap to change it out when it inevitably becomes dated.  :)

The guest bathroom and master bathrooms are a bit more of a challenge.  Originally we thought we'd just copy the bathrooms from the other house, which done with very cheap beige porcelain tile.   They looked ok, but they were very basic and boring.  After we started looking in tile, I really feel in love with the look of natural stone and I was able to convince Theresa that we should look into incorporating that into our bathrooms.

Brown travertine

As I mentioned previously, we have about 1k to spend on bathroom tile, and since we're upgrading our tile choices, going with stone, etc... it's going to be hard to fit everything under that budget.   If we start to run over, the guest bathroom is going to be where the cuts are made.  Our current plan is to go with the same brown travertine on the floor that we're going to be using for the entryway in the guest bathroom, assuming that it fits in the budget, if not we'll downgrade to porcelain tile, but we don't have anything particular picked out.  The shower/tub surround in this room will also be tiled and we're not exactly sure what we want to do here.  As I was looking at wall tile, I really didn't like the cheap porcelain options.  They look too much like blurry pictures that are imposed onto a hard surface (which, I suppose, is exactly what they are) So I'd like to get something a little nicer here.   We're going to get pricing on putting natural stone travertine (to match the floor) in the tub/shower surround, but I think that's going to be a bit pricey and we'll probably drop that down to a nicer grade of porcelain that is meant to mimic travertine.  If that's STILL too expensive, we might wind up sticking with a cheaper porcelain that fits within our allowance... maybe you just can't afford to upgrade everything.  *shrug*  For the vanity in this room, we'll likely stick with the same espresso cabinet finish, but the granite color might change from a light grey to some shade of brown.   (although that will tweak my inner OCD complex a bit)    This is just the current plan... this is the bathroom that may be subject to complete change.  We like the travertine and would very much like to work it in, but it might push us over budget, or we might decide it simply doesn't work with the more "modern" design of the rest of the house, so we may end up going in a different direction.

Our Quartzite Pattern - Baoding Creme

The master bathroom is where all of the money is being spent :( We definitely don't want a boring, beige, builder quality bathroom!  We want something fun, unique, different and modern... so we're planning on going with a natural stone here as well.   We're thinking about going with a quartzite on the floor and shower walls.   Quartzite is definitely a fun stone, lots of texture and interesting colors, so it definitely won't be boring.  We considered slate, but Theresa didn't like it and I liked it at first... but rapidly changed my opinion.   We're going to stick with the same cabinet/counter scheme from the kitchen here, so espresso cabinets and light grey counter.  The stone will require that it be sealed, and we'll have to be careful that we don't use anything harsh to clean it... .but it should look WAY more interesting than ceramic tile.  All in all the material upcharge shouldn't be TOO bad, because bathrooms are small.  But the variable here is that we don't know how much the subcontractor is going to charge us to install this stuff.  If he ends up tackling on another $3-$4 a sq ft... that may push us over budget and we might have to go with a ceramic backup plan.

Hopefully the mater bath tile looks like this

I don't get anything I want :(

There are quite a few things that I really wanted in this house... and for the most part I'm getting none of them :(

I really wanted tile in the kitchen and dining nook, I really wanted black granite counters, and I really wanted an area of tile inside the front door to protect the wood floors from having water/salt tracked in on them.

I'm getting none of these things and I'm losing out on several more.  :(

Now, I'm tempted to blame Theresa for this, and explain how she is bullying and berating me into giving up my dreams... but the fact of the matter is that I'm not getting these things because they just aren't good fits or aren't the best idea... and Theresa just kept gently expressing her opinion (and wincing when I mentioned mine) until I realized she was right.

For example, once we changed the cabinet color to a dark espresso, having black counters was no longer a good choice, and after thinking about the flooring for awhile, I realized that Theresa was right and that going with continuous wood was a better option.

I still harbor a sick and dying hope that in some dark corner of this house, there will exist something that is purely and uniquely "me"... but that's not looking very likely.  

Building a House is Expensive!

Of course the lot/house itself is not the least bit cheap, but there is so much more to consider!

Everyone says that you'll go way over budget when you build a house.  We've been pretty good so far, and I still hope that we're going to end up close to what we wanted to spend, but the potential to spend gobs of money is certainly there... and it is very tempting ot fall into the "well, it's easier and cheaper to just do it now" trap.

Essentials: 
I saw something the other day that said that the average homeowner moving into an existing house spends about $4300 in the first 3 months on supplies and home improvements, so this problem isn't exclusive to building new construction... but there are a lot of little things you have to finish with a new construction house that add up quickly.  We will have to:

• Buy appliances (we're given 1200 of credit from the builder)
• Buy blinds
• Buy furniture, we have quite a bit, but it's a big house 

This is in addition to all standard shopping that goes along with a new house purchase.

Construction Upgrades:
There is endless potential for upgrading and customizing the house as it's being constructed.  We're in a situation where the builder is more than usually willing to work us and customize things.   It is clearly easier and in most cases cheaper to upgrade everything now instead of coming back in few years and remodeling, but these upgrades add up quick so we have to be careful.

So far we've committed to:

• Upgraded kitchen cabinet configuration 
• Hardwood throughout the first floor
• Upgraded kitchen sink
• Addition of ceiling fan in the 2-story family room

And we are strongly considering:

• Putting natural stone in the bathrooms
• Replacing the carpeted stairs with wood treads
• Adding some windows to the master bedroom
• Adding additional paint colors (the house comes all one color and we might wnat to change a room or two or add an accent wall)
• Upgrading the front door. 

After Closing: 
After all of this, there is still a lot of stuff we have to take care of after we close:

• Landscaping, the yard will be barren earth and we will need to sod/seed and plan a few shrubberies
• Patios, we want to build both front and back patios
• Kitchen backsplash
• Cabinet hardware

And we don't have nearly the money we need to make the house "perfect" for us now, so we have a few things that we have to remodel or add later:

• Detached garage or shed in the back yard. 
• Hardwood flooring on the 2nd level
• Finish the basement.  

There's a lot there and buying an existing house would probably mean that we could save some of this money.  But, exiting houses often need to be remodeled or fixed... and we're paying a premium to get the house that is exactly what we want.

At the end of the day, we're viewing a house as a home, someplace we have to live and enjoy, not as an investment.  And we have a pretty good handle on the budget, we know what we CAN spend and we know what we WANT to spend.... so far we're pretty close to what we wanted to spend, but I think it's inevitiable that we're going to go a few thousand over budget.  But when you're building an entire house, overshooting your budget by a few thousand, is pretty negligible.  

•  

Stakes

So they put the stakes up on Tuesday, 9-14 and were supposed to dig on Thursday but unfortunately the rain prevent them. We hoped that they would get to in on Friday, as there was less rain if any at all. But when i drove by this morningg (Sat 9/18) all I noticed was some dirt had been moved around.

When I went on Wednesday to take the pictures of the stakes i met a new neighbor. He was painting his shed. He said that he loves the area and has been there since '88. He is one of our side neighbors on Gates Drive. The neighbors on Genick ct. ALL have kids. I wonder how that is going to work out for us!??!?!??! ; )

Ohhhh we now have an address! 3932 Genick! How very exciting, now if only we had a hole to go with it!

We have a Permit!

Soo excited to see Brad's email today at work telling me he had good news! When I called he confirmed we have a permit! What good news after being out sick on the second day of school! So excited to start to see things get moving!

Permit

We heard today that the building permit has been approved.  

We have a utility pole that needs to be moved (it's scheduled) and we have to get the underground utility lines and the foundation outline staked and then construction begins.  

We're not exactly sure how long that will take, but it shouldn't be much longer. 

The calm

We really haven't done much house related in the past week or so.  Theresa officially confirmed our cabinet upgrade choices but beyond that we haven't done anything, talked about anything or (at least in my case) really thought about much of anything in the past week or so.   It's actually been kinda nice.  It's good to know that doing this doesn't totally consume your life. 

I know we've mentioned it a time or two before, but I cannot stress how glad I am that we took advantage of all of this permit time to really plan out a lot of the choices we're going to have to make.  We certainly don't know exactly what we want for every little thing, but we have a good idea of what we want overall and we've at least narrowed almost all of our choices down.  The plan is to make the final decision process a lot easier when we actually have to make these choices and so far I feel really good about that.  We'll how it works once we start actively putting it into practice. 

I do still have random small ideas from time to time (today's thought: put the closet lights on a motion sensing switch) but for the most part it's been a really nice break from thinking about "the house" 

The permit should be coming fairly soon though, then the real stress begins. 

Hmmmm

Ok so school is about to start and I can not be happier that Brad and I have spent the last month making lots of decisions....Just being at work without the students this week made me realize even more that I am not going to have the time to make house decisions once school starts. Yes, I can make time, but my whole head won't be in it like it is now.

I talked to my friend from kickboxing and she is just a couple months ahead of us in building and she was on decision over load today. I am hoping that we skip some of that frustration by getting things picked out now. (Even though people thought we were crazy for being in their store, without a basement dug or even a permit, but it's going to make our lives easier!)

Stopped by the cabinet place today to finalize our decisions. They forgot a couple of our upgrades so I am going to have to wait for another invoice. Still a little nervous about the dark color (espresso) in the kitchen. Ann said that a lot of people choose it for a contemporary kitchen, but that I am going to have a lot of dusting to do....hmmm we'll see how that works out!

I am getting very excited and can't wait for things to start moving....just looking forward to the day Glenn calls us and tells us we have our permits!