So much to tell

Click photo for a slide show of the ground breaking and some of our new neighbors

This has been a busy week. Last Thursday, we met with our contractor. He took us to visit several of his vendors, so we could see the quality of materials that will be included in the basic allowances. If we want to upgrade anything, we have the option to do so at our own expense. So far, we see little to no need to consider upgrades. At the very least, I think we may be looking at a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand.

Monday, we met Duane again in Salem. We signed two contracts. The first was to secure the lot in our name. The second was for the building of a house on said lot. We met at an escrow office and did everything in a very business-like fashion, which I appreciated very much.

Following our meeting with Duane, we parted ways temporarily. Jill and I went to Independence and made a reservation to stay at the Ash Creek RV Park during the time of construction. We picked up some lunch, and then we headed for Dallas, where we were able to see the footprint of our new home plotted on the lot. It is going to seem like an estate.

Duane met us there and walked us around the lot and explained everything to us. We met several of the neighbors who walked by and stopped to chat. Jill already has two water aerobics partners and a walking partner, and Pogo had a friend named Buster.

Today, we drove back to Dallas for the groundbreaking. We arrived a few minutes past nine, and the crew was busily "logging" the lot. Several trees had to come down to make room for the house, but we will have several oaks, a cherry tree and a fir tree in the back yard. It should be quite lovely, with plenty of afternoon shade on our west-facing patio.



The weather soured while we were on site, so we decided to come home and let the workers do what we are paying them for. We stopped at the mechanic's shop to pick up Sadie, our motor home and soon to be full time home, following a carburetor rebuild. We took her to the storage facility, and now we are home.

Tomorrow, we continue packing up the house. Our official move out date is June 17, 2010. We have ordered a change of address with the post office, and we received our keys for the community mailbox that will be ours. As soon as we get to Independence, we will have mail delivered to our new Dallas address. Stay tuned; things are happening at break neck speed around here!

It's all in the plan

It took me a few days, but I finally figured out how to convert a .pdf file to a .jpg. So, now I can post some drawings of the new house.


This, of course, is the floor plan. We have made some minor changes to the pantry/laundry/master bath area, which will give us a larger pantry, with the door closer to the kitchen. We also plan to have a 6'0" X 6'0" window in the dining room in lieu of the patio slider. We will replace the window on the left side of the dining room with a door with a full length window that will lead out onto the covered portion of the patio.



And here is a front elevation showing the RV garage on the left end. Duane carefully redrew the front porch cover (second gable from the right) a little larger to balance the visual weight of the extra garage area and its necessarily taller overhead door.

Click on the drawings to blow them up for closer inspection.

I spoke with Duane on the phone today. He expects to have the plans ready to submit to the planning commission early next week. I believe that means that we will have a contract soon, and then it should be about a week before we can break ground. Heady stuff!

A major step

Another trip to Dallas was on our agenda today. We checked out the lots that will fit our plan. It was a tough decision, because we had in mind to find a west-facing lot, but all the west facing lots that fit our plan had an awful slope to the rear of the lot.

At last we realized that the lot we liked best, although facing east, has a nice stand of oak trees in the backyard. Well, actually they cover about half of the lot, so we will have to take several of them out. Nevertheless, we will be able to have a nice shady yard in the afternoon.

We walked down the street to one of the houses that Duane has built in the subdivision. It has several oaks in the backyard and the owners have done a beautiful job of landscaping around them. We will definitely introduce ourselves and study their work. There will be plenty of room for a stream/waterfall/fishpond.

Duane took us to see a couple of houses he has built. His craftsmanship and attention to details is wonderful, and both homeowners said that it was a joy to work with him. Jill, of course, made immediate connections with the two women who owned these homes. I believe we will have friends in Dallas long before we move into our new home.

Interestingly, both of these homes have RV pads on the property, but neither party owns an RV. Jill mentioned that we will need a place to park our motor home during construction. Now we have two offers of RV pads we can use. While the offers are tempting, there is the problem of sewage. It would be quite inconvenient to have to drive somewhere every three or four days to empty the holding tanks. I think we will look for an RV park with a full hook-up.
After our adventures we were hungry and we wanted to go back and just dream about our new home. We stopped at Subway and got a sandwich, and then we went back to the lot for a picnic. I called Patrick, and he came over to see the area and the lot we chose. It is within about four or five blocks of a dear friend of his. The fact is that we looked at a house right next door to Dave and Kellie's!

So, the ball is rolling, and we are impatient to see some big progress. Duane will call us in a few days when he has put the drawings together and made a cost estimate. I can already tell the waiting will be the hardest part of this project.

As if by magic

Another leap forward today. We met with Duane, the builder with whom we made contact on Tuesday. He seems to be very accommodating. He showed us a plan that addresses all our needs and which lots it will fit. We are very encouraged.

I asked Duane what is the best way to expedite the process, so that we have a home as soon as possible. He said that we can actually do all the permitting and even build the foundation, under floor plumbing and electrical and the deck. Then when our house deal closes, framing could begin immediately.

Tomorrow, we are going to Dallas to "walk" the lots and pick the one that will work best for us. If we are lucky, Duane will also be able to arrange for us to see the inside of one of the homes he has built.

I asked if he knew about the feasibility of our parking our motorhome on the property during construction. He said it was OK with him, but we will need to check with the city to see if there are any prohibitions. There are practically no neighbors, so they shouldn't complain! Then Duane brightened and said, "I could ask June." June had Duane build her a house, and it seems she has some friends with an RV. She decided it would be nice for them to have a place to park, if they wanted to come for a visit, so she had Duane add an RV pad with 50 Amp electric service! He thinks there is a possibility that she would let us park there, while the house is under construction. Now that is what I call a full service builder!

So, things are rolling along. We need to review the plan that Duane left with us and see if there are any changes we would like to make. Once we have decided which lot we like, Duane can let us know what the cost will be, and then we may be off to the races.

Stay tuned.

A new direction

The past week has been eventful. Our realtor ran out of houses to show us and has had difficulty in connecting with the owners of building lots. Many of the sellers are private individuals or contractors and are not interested in talking with a realtor about selling. Obviously there would be a realtor's fee to pay.

Nevertheless, Sylvia did make contact with a realtor who is handling the sale of lots in a nice development in east Dallas. She sent me a copy of the CC&Rs for this area. What a disappointment. The document is 31 pages long. Among the things that are not allowed in this development are 1) flagpoles, 2) wooden fences (only wrought iron!), and 3) (my personal favorite) "your garage door may only be open when moving a vehicle or other equipment into or out of the garage." We will not be living in River Gleann.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...Jill and I made a trip to Dallas on Tuesday. We had decided to look at as many lots as we could, so that we would be able to tell Sylvia which one we wanted to cut a deal on. (Sorry about that terminal preposition... it's been a long day.) We did look at the River Gleann lots again, and we looked at one in the Bridlewood neighborhood, a well established neighborhood with a good deal of understated elegance.

But we got really excited when we revisited "Cynthian Oaks" phase 2. We found a sign facing away from the street and thus unreadable. When we turned it around, we found, to our delight lots in our size and price range and a builder building homes in our size and price ranges.

I called the number on the sign and got a recording. "Oh, great," says I, "This is not going so well." I left a message and began exploring the area. Within about two minutes, my phone rang. It was Duane from First Equity Builders. I had quite a lengthy conversation with Duane, and neither of us flinched! That is to say, I didn't hear anything that discouraged me, and apparently Duane didn't either.

We told Duane we would explore the lots and look at a couple of houses he had built in the area and call him back. On Wednesday I called Duane and told him we are very interested to sit down and talk with him about building a home. He said he had a rough idea of what we want, and he would plot some plans to scale on a plat map for us. He promised to call in a day or so. We didn't hear anything today, so we are getting a little antsy.

Tomorrow is another day.

And the beat goes on...

Our counter offer was accepted. An inspection has been done. Among other things, the inspector reported that the furnace filter needs to be replaced. I think I can handle that one. The other minor fixes I will farm out.

We drove to Centralia, WA today to look at a Reality Homes model that we think might be a plan that would work for us. It is quite beautiful, but may be a little bigger than we want. It is a three bedroom/two bath model, but the rooms are tremendous!

We have come to the conclusion that, in order to get what we want, we will probably have to build. So, our focus now is on finding a plan and a lot that will fit together.

It is an interesting feeling to be on the precipice of homelessness. Although, we are so blessed that we have had three offers of interim housing! We also have our wonderful motor home, so we are not too worried. I think the biggest concern now is to get the ball rolling on a building project so that we can be in a house before winter.

Stay tuned!

A very strange thing

There are many new developments in our lives. I have wanted to move to a small town ever since I lived in Fallbrook, CA during my Navy days. Well, recently, Jill and I decided it's now or never to make our move. We were in Monmouth, visiting Pat and Katie a couple of weeks ago. They took us to Dallas (no, not that Dallas...I mean the real Dallas...Oregon...population 14,000) for breakfast.

Jill found a house on line that looked intriguing, and the kids took us by to see what it looked like in person. It has the shop/RV garage that we have been wanting. The house is a 1950s ranch style that has been updated a good deal. The downside is that it sits on the main road into Dallas...way too much traffic.

The seed was planted, though. On our way home from our visit with the kids, we talked the whole way (an hour and 15 minutes' drive) about the fact that we are not getting any younger and that we would like to be closer to at least one of our kids (and eventual grand kids). I recalled my Mom telling me that she regrets she and Dad never moved to Joseph, a small town in eastern Oregon near where Dad grew up. That was Dad's dream, but he never got to live it.

The die was cast. We came home and began cleaning up the house so that it would be marketable. We made a trip back to Dallas to cruise by a bunch of homes we found for sale on the internet. We made an appointment with Sylvia, a realtor in Dallas, to see the inside of several of them. We called our "realtor for life," who has sold three prior homes for us and a few before that for Jill, in her pre-Tom existence. Last Friday we sat down with him and went over the listing process.

On Monday our house was listed for sale, a foolish move, indeed, given that the real estate market has been depressed for a couple of years now. Nevertheless, on the market it went. On Tuesday morning, Steve (read "realtor for life") called to see if it would be OK to show the house that evening. "Of course," I said.

Fast forward 24 hours. Steve called again. (Now this is the very strange thing.)
"Hello," says I.
"It's Steve," says he.
"Hi, Steve, what's up?"
"How about a full price offer?"
"That would be nice."
"You got one!"

We were five minutes from leaving the house to fly to San Diego for a visit with our grandsons (and their parents, too). So, Steve and I agreed that we would have him fax the paperwork, and we would fax it back with our signatures appended. And so we did.

Now, the pressure is on. Find a house or be homeless as of June 19th! Now where did I leave Sylvia's phone number?