Brush Part Deux

After barely being able to move Sunday morning (I think every single muscle in my body was furious with me after Saturday's break in the "Sabrina does no menial labor" clause of our contract!) :), we headed down to the field after lunch to check on the fire.  It was still going (having burned through the night), but was much smaller than when we left the night before.  Jason "turned it over" with the tractor and bucket, and then we set about redoing the ditch.  Well, Jas wouldn't let me drive the tractor so this was mostly a one-man show.  By mid-afternoon, the sun had finally emerged and started drying the corn left in the field.  The plan was to burn the field to remove most of the remaining corn shucks, stalks, root balls and then disc up the rest to get the site ready for excavation.

By late afternoon it was ready to burn, and Jason (armed with the four-wheeler, propane tank, and flame thrower attachment -- very macho) was ready to go.  After a failed attempt to get moi to drive the atv while he lit the field on fire (Really, what was he thinking?), he and his dad headed out to burn stuff up! :)  I apologize for the lack of photos, but the wind was blowing the smoke so bad that I couldn't get a good shot before I had to head inside. 

Not too long after burning, Jas disced the field up and all that was left was to tend the fire some more.  (By now, it had been burning for 24 hours.)

Our goal for Monday is to stake the house boundaries, and put out the flags, etc. in preparation for excavation.  (Say that five times fast!) :)

We're so glad to have this part of the "prep work" finished, and we're so thankful we have family to help.  This day was not quite so exhausting (for me, anyway), but it was still satisfying.  Things are coming along nicely.  Now if we just had someone to dig and pour the basement . . .

Brush? Brush? We don't need no stinkin' brush . . .

I am just now recovering from the weekend, and no, I did not spend it partying until the wee hours of the morning. :)  When we woke up Saturday morning, we knew we had two things on the agenda:  1) Deliver a Halloween costume to Sikeston (and collect $10), and 2) Meet with another contractor about the basement.  Jas said if we accomplished both those things before lunch, we could go down to the building site after lunch and clean out some brush.  Normally I would have shuddered at the thought, but we both knew it would feel good to get out there and accomplish something.  So I agreed, and after lunch we headed down there.  We gathered up some hoes and rakes and gloves, and set to work. 

There were quite a few medium-size trees and a TON of brush, weeds, old fence row, etc. that needed to be cleared out.  And it was going to take the two of us FOREVER.

But then Jason's sister Jill came down.  And the three of us set to work on the brush and the first of the trees.  Jason got the chainsaw, and after a few hours we had cleared the brush between our property markers. 

But Jason's parents really wanted the rest of the brush and trees gone, too, (that were on their property) so we kept going.  And going.  And going.  Just like the Energizer bunny.  Eventually, after blisters began forming between thumbs and forefingers, Jas got the tractor and bush hog and began clearing the ditch.

Jill and I were very appreciative, because it meant less hoeing and raking.  But only slightly less.

By the time we got to the big trees at the end, we were joined by Jason's brother Jeremy, his cousin Travis, his uncle Andy, and his dad.  Jeremy and Jas cut the trees down with the chainsaws, and Travis dragged them to the brush pile with the tractor.  Jill and I dragged off all the rest of the brush and limbs.

We ended up with a massive brush pile (much larger than the one in the above photo), but by that time it was getting dark and I didn't have the camera out.  (BTW, see that chunk of tree leaning against the truck?  That's our new mailbox post!) 

We spent the rest of the evening (until about 9:30) burning the brush pile.  

There is NO way we could have accomplished all this by ourselves -- the task was enormous!  So we give a monstrous THANK YOU first of all to Jill, who stuck with us the whole day, and even joined us again on Sunday to finish up.  We also thank Jeremy (especially since he ended up with poison ivy), Travis, Andy, and Vernon.  And Susie, for keeping an eye on all the kids and fixing us dinner.  We couldn't have done it without all of you!

Stay tuned for part two -- Sunday! :)

So what does the site look like right now?

Our building site leaves a lot to be desired at this point, unless you're a farmer.  Then it looks beautiful! :)

A field of corn.  In a few days, however, the corn will be gone and we can get started.  Bring on the money! :)

*If you look hard, you can find the stake marking the southern edge of our property.  The northern edge is up past the utility pole in that group of trees.

What Steps Have We Done So Far?

So what are the steps in this process?

Step 1:  Get some land.  Can't build a house if you don't have a place to put it.  That sounds easier than it actually is.  Fortunately for us, Jason's parents gave us three acres of farmland to build our dream house on.  Wasn't that nice?  We picked out a spot, which happened to be next to their house.  Of course, in farm terms, "next to" doesn't mean the same as it does to city-dwellers.  In the rent-house we live in presently, our "next-door neighbors" are quite a ways down the road.  But that's one thing we love about living in the country.  Call us crazy, but we just don't like living right up next to people.  We like our privacy.  And we've spent too many years in the country now to live any other way.

Anyhoo, after you pick out a spot, you have to have it surveyed.  Lucky for us, Jason's mom got a surveyor who didn't have anything going on at the moment and came and surveyed right away.  After the plat was drawn up, it had to be taken to the county recorder of deeds to be, well, recorded.  Makes sense to me! :)

Step 2:  Get an address.  Our next item on the to-do list was to get an address, which couldn't be done until the plat was surveyed and recorded.  We informed the county clerk's office of our location, giving them precise directions to the property.  They then used the stakes left by the surveyor to determine the physical address of our property.  However, our county only does addresses on Fridays, so we had to wait until the end of the week to get it done.  We got a really cool piece of paper with our new address on it, and after all that was recorded and set up we could move on to the next step.

Step 3:  Have a good idea of what you're wanting to build, and roughly how much it will cost.  There is no reason at this point to get specific estimates, but before we attempted to secure financing, we wanted to know roughly what it would cost. We estimated everything high, to avoid being surprised later!  We decided to go with a modular home, instead of a site-built home at this point.  We looked at some floor plans, picked a company to build our home, and got some rough estimates.

Step 4:  Apply for financing.  This seemed like a long process, but looking back on it I guess it wasn't really all that bad.  But while you're waiting to know if you've been approved, it seems like the time passes v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y!  After looking into several lenders, we decided to go with the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Housing Development program.  The program is designed to help families build or purchase homes in rural areas.  Well, our site definitely qualifies as rural!  They have two loan programs, direct and guaranteed.  Guaranteed is run through a regular lender, and direct is funded by Congress.  To qualify for direct, you have to be in the lower income section of your county.  Even though Jason makes more than enough to provide for us, we qualify for the direct because we're a single-income family.  (Not that all single-income families would qualify of course.  I mean, if your single-income earner is Bill Gates, you're probably not going to get the money.  But then again, you probably don't need it either!) :)  After the first round of paperwork to determine pre-eligibility, we filled out a 13-page application to determine final eligibility, and had to take (and pass) a first-time homebuyer's education course online. A few weeks later, I received a phone call informing us that we had been determined eligible.  After some celebratory jogs around the yard while shouting "We're going to be homeowners!" at the top of my lungs, I settled down and called my husband to share the fabulous news with him.  He was at work, so he toned his celebrations down a notch, but nonetheless we were both over the moon!  But this was only the beginning . . .

Step 5:  Finalize house plans and get specific estimates.  We didn't receive the full amount we'd requested, so some changes had to be made.  Fortunately for us, those changes were pretty easy and we didn't have to make any changes to the house plan itself.  Yay!  Jason decided to do all the finish work to the house after it was delivered and set up.  In doing so, we saved almost $6000.  He has a week's vacation left to use before the middle of November, so he's going to take a week off and finish some odd jobs that need to be done for the house to be finished.  Even though most of the house is completed, the house still has to be delivered to us in two sections.  So some finish work has to be completed inside and out to make it look seamless.  The ends of the house, for example, have to have the siding attached after it's delivered.  Also, any drywall crossing the middle (technical term is the "marriage wall") has to be finished and blended in with the rest.  If there are any interior doors in the marriage wall area, they can't be hung until the house is delivered and set up.  Little things like that.  Nothing that Jason can't handle, and it won't take too much time.  Besides that, with a week's vacation to use up and almost $6000 to save it's a no-brainer.

Step 6:  Get specific estimates on foundation/basement, septic system and well.  After the house is priced, you can subtract that from the money you're getting and see how much you have left for all this stuff.  The basement costs are going to be our most expensive item other than the house, but if you do your homework it doesn't have to be so bad.  Number one, we asked for recommendations.  Jason knows a guy who works for a big-time construction company in our area and he recommended a couple of guys.  We knew that we were limited by our budget, so we ruled out the big construction guys because they don't need our business in order to make a healthy living.  Therefore, they wouldn't be willing to come down in their price any. Also, the chances of them being able to work us in (pretty much immediately) was probably not going to happen.  So Jas met with one of the guys his friend recommended, and they got back to us with an estimate that we could live with.  Best part was, they could start soon.  That was also really important.  He also talked to a septic guy and a well guy, and got estimates on those as well. (Are there no women in our area doing construction, well, or septic systems?  Come on ladies . . . represent!) :)

Step 7:  Putting it all together.  This is the tricky part.  You know how much the lender is willing to give you, and you have prices on the house, the foundation, the septic system, and the well.  Oh, and the electric company.  I forgot to mention them in step 6, but unless service has already been run to your property, that's something else you will have to figure in to your overall budget.  So we crunched some numbers.  Then we got back with the home builder and crunched a few more. 

Step 8:  Get lender to approve construction loan.  Once we got everything to an amount we could live with, we took all our information to the lender to get our specific plan approved.  Remember, just because you've been determined "eligible" for a certain amount doesn't mean your particular loan has been approved.  The lender still has to look over your plans, estimated cost sheets, land site, etc. before approving your construction loan.  This is where we're at right now, waiting for our plans to be approved.  Once that happens and we get the money, we can order our house and start on the excavation.  Stay tuned! :)

An introduction

Background:  Jason and I are high school sweethearts, having tied the knot after college.  He's Parts Manager for an area car dealership, and I'm a former junior high teacher turned stay-at-home mom/photographer.  For the past 12 (gulp! has it really been that long?) years, we have lived in a rental house sitting on some acreage a couple of miles from Jason's parents' farm.  Although the house is old and persnickety (don't even get me started!), we have loved the privacy of the country and our location.  But it's a two bedroom house with just a little over 1000 square feet, and with two growing kids it's getting a teensy-weensy bit crowded.  So we began looking for something different. 

We knew we HAD to stay in the country -- there was just no way we could live in town.  No compromising there.  So after about 9 months of searching the MLS listings and FSBO listings in the paper and online, we still hadn't found what we were looking for.  Well, I take that back.  We found a few properties we loved, but they were either a) too expensive or b) too far away.  We still wanted to be close to our families, especially since Jas helps his dad out on the farm, so whatever we found had to be fairly close.  And in our particular area, those houses aren't for sale.  What to do, what to do? 

We talked about building, and Jas' parents were willing to give us some acreage to make that happen.  But a site-built house with the options we wanted in it was not feasible on a single income.  And if we built on his family's land, then it would obviously be a house we were going to stay in forever.  So we had to be happy with it.  The search began for something that would fit us perfectly -- enter modular homes.  (Cue the happy music.)

Why modular?  For many years, I thought a person's home options were limited to a site-built house or a doublewide.  And no offense to doublewide owners (my parents actually live in a very nice one!), but we didn't want that.  The house we purchase has to stand forever, or at least until we're no longer on this Earth to occupy it, so it has to be built as strong as possible.  Mobile/manufactured homes are not built to the same construction codes and standards that site-built homes are.  It's one reason they are so much cheaper per square foot.  So if you're not planning to stay in it forever, it can be a very viable alternative.  Modular homes, howerver, ARE built to the same codes and standards as site-built homes.  What makes them a little cheaper is how and where they're constructed.  Basically, they're built indoors in a giant factory.  Indoors means that the building materials are not left out in the elements.  (No rain, snow, etc. sitting on them.)  Also, the manufacturer builds plenty of homes each year, so they can afford the best saws and other construction equipment.  (That means better construction.)  The biggest reason for the cheaper price is that the manufacturer buys in bulk.  That means they can pass the savings onto you.  It's just like saving money buying in bulk at Sam's or Costco.  (Unless you buy a gallon jar of olives and you only use them at holidays -- then you're not saving ANY money!) :)  Point is, with a modular home you get the same quality construction (better, really) and you get it a little cheaper.  That's a win-win in my book!

The other thing we really liked is that, once you locate a modular home dealer (ours is Wilson Homes in Festus, MO), you can actually walk through some of their model homes and get a feel for the construction and some of the options available.  That's really good for a visual person like myself, because I could point to things and say "I like that," or other things and say "We can't have that in our house!" :)  We looked through tons of floorplans, and eventually narrowed it down to several that we really liked. 

Floorplans Schmoorplans:  We looked through a ton of plans, from various manufacturers around the United States.  We eventually settled on Commodore Homes, specifically Commodore Homes of Indiana.  We liked their plans the best, and they had all the options we knew we wanted to add to our home.  It was really easy to customize the home, too.  You can stretch them if you want more square footage, or shrink them if you like a plan but it's way too big.  You can add basements, upgraded cabinetry, different mouldings, styles of doors and windows, pretty much anything you can imagine.  Totally customizable.  Now, let me state up front that you obviously pay more the more you customize.  But the price is still good compared to a similar site-built home.

So what did we look for in a floorplan, you ask?  Why, let me share with you our thoughts . . . We knew we wanted something around 15-1600 square feet.  Anything smaller was a little too cramped for us, and bigger wasn't really necessary.  My parents' house is over 1800 square feet and it's humongous -- great for parties but a pain in the butt to clean.  Besides, we want it to feel cozy but not cramped.  Once we narrowed down the size, we moved onto layout.  We wanted an open living/dining/kitchen with decent bedroom sizes.  We also wanted the kitchen/dining room on the back side of the house, so we could add patio doors and a deck.  We also had to have the laundry room on the side of the house because we planned to add a carport and wanted easy access into the home without having to walk all the way around front.  We narrowed the list further, and then began to pick apart each home plan, trying to think of every contingency and whether the house would "work" for us.  Ultimately, the deciding factor came to basement placement.  (That rhymes!) 

For some reason, the majority of floorplans called for the basement access to cut into one of the bedrooms, which made no sense to us whatsoever.  We lucked out, and with our floorplan we can put the basement access in the living room, and no bedrooms will be harmed in the making of this house.  Yay!

On to options:  (Also known as the fun part!)  Now that we were done picking a floorplan, it was time to customize.  We decided not to make too many changes, we really liked the plan the way it was laid out.  We did change a few things, however.  There were several options for us that were "no compromise" options, meaning we had to have them regardless.  It's always important to lay those out first, and then you can see if you have money left for the things you "like, but don't really need".  On our must-have list?  a 54" glass and ceramic-tile shower like we salivate over on those design shows, a humongous island in the kitchen, 6-panel interior doors, upgraded exterior doors, and patio doors in the dining room.  Lucky for us, none of these options broke the bank. What options weren't necessary, but we ended up keeping them because they weren't too expensive?  A microwave over the oven, a built-in dishwasher, stem lights over the island, and a bigger light in the dining room.  Oh, and two porch lights instead of just one.  And an extra deep kitchen sink.  The homes come with refrigerators and stoves, but we already have those so we got a credit on that part which was nice. 

Next we chose (actually Jas didn't have much to do with this part) siding colors, shutters, trim colors, carpet styles and colors, cabinetry styles and colors, tile, backsplashes, countertops, mouldings, lights, and doors.  That was so much fun!  After everything's been decided upon, and we take a few days to think and make any changes we might want to make, a contract is drawn up.  Now the only thing missing is the money!  But we're getting to that part!