I know, it’s been so long since I’ve filled you in on our forever house build. Let me tell you it has been crazy! Which has really been why I’ve been missing for so long. I’m going to take a little time tonight to try to catch up on some of the writing that so badly needs to be done though or else I may forget all of it!
RAW LAND
We purchased raw land meaning our land was 12.5 acres of untouched land. Full of trees, rocks, no driveway, no water, no electric, sewer, nothing. We literally have to start from scratch, which means the first thing we have to do is find someone to come survey the land and stake out our property lines.
I hopped onto a local app called Angie’s list and looked for local survey people, I also asked the real estate agent, google searched and asked family and friends. I then made calls and sent emails and got as many quotes as I could and made a decision based on who had the best price since we were on a budget. After surveying was done, we called in the engineer to make sure that the land was good for a sewer, we weren’t worried about water as we had a spring running through the property. It was the sewer we were afraid we were going to have a problem with being that it was basically a mountain. Once we were cleared there, it was time to get a curb cut permit and to get moving to the next step.
QUOTING PROCESS
Next came the quoting process, I pretty much spent most of the beginning of the spring season getting quotes for clearing the trees and making us a road to get from the bottom of the main road to where we planned on building our house. Those quotes ranged from $28,000-$125,000.00 and this was just to clear the “driveway” portion out. This wasn’t for the sewer, this wasn’t to drill a well, or to bring electric up to the house site which would probably run another $40,000-$50,000. Oh yes friends, I was learning quite a bit. I was learning how to feel people out. I was learning how to weed out the snakes who thought they could play a female thinking they were talking to a dummy. I talked to excavators, and loggers and tried to decide which was the better way to go for us. By the time we got through everyone and got all the quotes and dealt with the crappy rainy weather it was late July before anything was even started.
In the end we met with a really sweet guy who did a great job for us at a really crazy price though. I was really glad I met him and was very happy I hired him. My brother in law also pitched in and helped with stoning part of the road so it saved us some money there as well. We were trying to save as much money as we could during this process because it was only the beginning, we still had so much to do. But it was a great start. We finally had trees cleared and a partial road that got us access to the top of the land. There was still A LOT of work to do.
This was only partially done. It was access to the switchback which brought us to an old logging road on our property. This logging road was muddy and needed to be cleaned up and stoned and we needed culvert pipes put in for drainage and a ton of work done but we were happy with being able to drive the side by side up there and Tim could get his truck up to the top part of the hill before the rest of the trees needed clearing out. Work for another year because by this point we are in late fall and out of time. It is crazy to think of all the things that you have to go through to even get things rolling.
CRAZIEST NEWS OF ALL
So Tim and I spent the winter looking at house plans and trying to figure out what we really want. It’s just he and I now and the dogs and it’s suppose to be our “forever house” we are building. They say you should be down sizing when you get older. So I start trying to get quotes on houses to stick build (remember we are mid covid crap) vs modular homes. Well the quotes on all of that start rolling in from the places I was inquiring from and lets just say that if I was going to pay that kind of money for a house that size then it better be on a lake somewhere. The prices I was being quoted were insane and it wasn’t even to get it up my 1500 Ft driveway/mountain.
So Tim and I on a complete whim go from building our forever house by ourselves being the GC’s on a 12.5 acre secluded mountain top with practically no neighbors to building our forever house on 2.63 acres in a 10 house development with a builder a few blocks away from a lake with some neighbors but still a little secluded with beautiful pine trees and deer.
Our 12.5 acre piece of land was just sold about a month and a half ago and we have been in the building process with our new build for 15 months now. It was suppose to be done in February but like everything since covid, it is behind. I will post again soon. I’ve been taking tons of pictures during the process. Building is huge and not for the faint of heart. It is definitely an adventure!
Until next time friends, you know the deal. Travel and fall in love, adventure awaits ❤️