Just checking in.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a nice holiday!

Not a whole lot new to report. We're continuing to negotiate the budget with our builder (which is akin to pulling out each of my molars individually with a pair of blunt pliers without the benefit of painkillers). It looks like we might be financing the project ourselves in order to save some money on carrying costs and the inevitable builder markups. We have a call into our banker - we're hoping she can turn around a construction loan fairly quickly. Our builder said that they can break ground a week or two before the loan closes as long as everything is submitted properly and all systems are go.

So, we're still hoping that January will be the month we break ground.

No, really.

Stop laughing and stay tuned!

P.S. Have a safe and enjoyable New Years!

Ummm, yeah.....

Builder just called - we're about 20% over budget right now w/ our current set of drawings. :faint:

It's okay though, we'll get there. We made a few pretty drastic changes that will bring down the cost a lot. We're getting rid of the basement (we'll just have the existing crawlspace - not a huge deal since we have tons of storage space in our bonus room in the attic), the sunroom has been turned into an open air covered porch (similar to the front porch), we got rid of the cofferred ceilings in the family room (sniff, sniff), and downgraded a few other small things. I feel good about our changes - none of them is earth-shattering and if it gets us to a point where we're not house poor, it's all good. :)

It's starting to feel real.

Right this very moment, I am holding our blueprints in my hands. They look so...official. I am starting to get a little giddy - it's finally starting to feel real!

We are supposed to get the budget either today or tomorrow - we are preparing ourselves for major sticker shock. At this very moment I'm calling in a prescription for Xanax. We will probably have to tweak the plans a bit to make them fit into our budget - hopefully that will not involve eliminating the second floor or something. (Don't laugh - it's possible).

Once our budget is approved (hopefully by the end of this week), our plans will go to the city of Tinley Park for approval. That will be the last obstacle before we can break ground. Can I get a woot woot over here??

Thanks to my lovely cousin Kari, we were able to play around with different colors for our house. Even though I said we had chosen red, there was still a part of me that was pining after the yellow. I'm so glad Kari photoshopped the drawings for us, because now I finally have some closure. She did two different yellows - a pale yellow and a more golden yellow. The pale I thought looked a little washed out, and the golden yellow seemed too bright to us. Either way, we realized how difficult working with a yellow would be - it's so hard to get the color just right. So we've finally settled on the red. Period, the end. Very exciting.

Here are the yellows that Kari photoshopped for us:

Pale yellow:


Golden yellow:

Drumroll please...

I think we've made our decision. I can honestly say that this might have been the first real test of our marriage. :) There was lots of haggling, arguing, list-making, bribing, tickling, tears, and a fist through the drywall. (No not really, but it sounds cool).

Anyway, our new house if officially going to be...
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RED!

:faint:

Grr...poll problems.

Sorry, it appears the polling feature was a little jacked for a while there. I added a third party poll that will hopefully alleviate the problems. For those of you who voted before, please vote again using the new poll that actually works. This is highly scientific research and I'd hate to skew the results. ;)

Thanks!

Polls never lie.

I know many of you will be highly surprised by this, *insert sarcasm here*, but it looks like December will not be the month we break ground.

The good news is that our blueprints are done. The bad news is that it's going to take a full month to obtain permits and get the construction financing in order - and with the upcoming holidays, chances are this process will bleed into January. *sigh*

But, our builder supposedly has a construction timeline put together that says that, barring any extended cold spells, he should be able to complete our house in 5 months, 1 week. The precision of this number is somewhat puzzling, but I'm going to run with it. So, theoretically speaking, a July close is still feasible (if somewhat unlikely).

Now to the fun part. As I mentioned in a previous post, our builder commissioned an artist to do a color rendering of our house for marketing purposes. She chose a slightly different color from the pale yellow that Jeff and I had been considering. And when I say slightly, I mean it's totally different.

Jeff loves it. He wants to marry it. My builder loves it. My mom loves it. I'm just not sure if I love it. It's so different from what we had been considering.

So without further adieu, here it is. Please note that the scan picked up the red a little differently - it's technically a rust red as opposed to the truer red in this pic:

So, what do you think? I'll post a new poll so I can document your responses quantitatively (because that's how I roll).

Eeek, it's almost December!

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a very nice Thanksgiving! I know I did. Thanks to Jane's 14 pies (well okay, there were four pies but it seemed like 14!), I think I gained about 5 pounds in 5 days. That's impressive, even for me.

I really have no update - I just e-mailed the architect to get a status check on our blueprints. I'll check in again once I've heard from him. I'm hoping December will be the month we can start uploading some pictures showing actual progress!

We're back in bizness

Let's see, where did I leave off? Oh yes, the deal was falling through.

Well, to make a very VERY long story short, we're back on again. It took a few candid conversations with our builder, some long conversations with our attorney, and a threat to walk away, but I think we're good again. The architects are fast-tracking our drawings in order to move things along. In fact, we've gotten two new drafts of the floor plans just in the past couple of days, so things are finally coming together. We think we're 97% happy with the current drawings so they are now converting them into full-on, buildable blueprints. They're hoping to apply for permits in the next 10 days, after which we should be able to build within 3-4 weeks. So our new ETA for breaking ground is Christmas.

All we want for Christmas is a hole in the ground and some poured concrete. Do you think Santa can manage that? Please God I hope so. :)

Here are the latest drawings - the biggest changes are to the living room (we added a bay window), the master bedroom (we added a tiny balcony - no big deal), and we added in some architectural details (coffered ceilings, hard wood flooring, etc.) I've included two of the exterior elevations too so you can see how the balcony will look from the outside - it's pretty neato (if I do say so myself). :)

NOTE: All of this is subject to change once we get the budget and promptly pass out.

In other news, our builder commissioned a full-color rendition of our house to use in some marketing materials for his company. We haven't seen the results yet but our builder insists that it will knock our socks off. Word on the street is that the artist made the house a brownish/red instead of pale yellow. (!) We're having a hard time picturing that, but we're trying to keep an open mind. Who knows, if we like it enough we might change our mind about the color. I'm hoping to get a copy of it this coming weekend - I will be a good blogger and update the site once I have it.

So, stay tuned...

This blog may not be long for this world.

Looks like our deal might fall through. I spoke with the fired architect this morning and he gave us a lot to think about. Much of what he said was pretty shocking. So, I'm not sure if we're going to move forward at this point - everything's on hold. Still waiting to hear back from our attorney, but things are not looking good.

#$%^&*(

Our architect was just fired. It did not end on good terms so he will not be handing over his notes from our 2+ hour meeting last Saturday. There will be no transition. We are basically back where we started 2 weeks ago. We just lost a lot of ground. :(

Now THAT's a balcony.

We met with the architect again this past Saturday to go over some additional changes to the latest set of drawings.

We may or may not have doubled the size of the balcony off the master bedroom.

We started to get into some of the fun details like flooring, lighting, and architectural details. I'm sure our imagination is a lot bigger than our budget, but it was still fun to dream. In the words of our architect, "it costs nothing to draw it in - we can always take it out again later."

Yeah right - famous last words.

Our architect said it will take about 2-3 weeks to make our changes and put together the official blueprints, after which we're hoping to start applying for permits and get this process rolling. Our new ETA for groundbreaking is looking like mid- to late-December, which may not be possible if the ground freezes before then. We're keeping our fingers crossed - if groundbreaking gets pushed off till the spring, we're thinking there's no way we can do a July closing.

We have new drawings!

We have some additional drawings! (You can click on them to see them larger)

Front elevation (same as before):



Left elevation:



Right elevation:



Rear elevation:



1st Floor Floorplan:



2nd Floor Floorplan:



We have a bunch of changes that we want to make, but at least this is a start! We are hoping to meet with the architects again this weekend to work on some additional changes.

He's ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Just got off the phone with the builder. *phew* Apparently he wasn't in the Caribbean - he was in Scottsdale. Ha! He has not absconded with our deposit but was just taking a mental health break. Unfortunately, he didn't take into consideration our mental health before deciding to disappear without a word. Oh well - what's done is done.

Anyway, he reiterated that they would be sending us some pretty detailed drawings over the weekend, so hopefully I will have a fun update by early next week.

New ETA on Updated Drawings

Well, apparently our builder has been mysteriously sent out of town for work for these past 3 weeks. (?) I'm still fuzzy as to why he can't answer his cell phone while he is out of town, but whatever - we ended up e-mailing the architect directly. The architect claims we will have updated plans by the end of next week.

Here's hoping.

Our Builder is MIA (and some more ideas)

Our builder hasn't returned my calls for the past 6 days. I'm hoping this doesn't mean he's gone out of business and/or fled the country.

*sigh*

In the meantime, I guess I'll post some more of our ideas that may or may not ever materialize, depending on whether our deposit money is being spent on cheap tequila and loose women in the Caribbean somewhere.

Anyway, I am trying to convince Jeff to do the dark hardwood floors. I really like the look of dark floors and white trim, with a lighter paint color. This picture will kind of give you an idea - although this example might be a tad too dark.

Our second choice would be more of a golden color - similar to what we had in our condo in the city.

We're planning on doing hardwood in the entryway, the dining room, and the main family room for sure. The living room and the office are maybe's, depending on how much damage our budget can take. ;) The entire second floor and bonus room will be carpet though.

In the dining room, we really want to have a built-in china hutch. I've been trying to find some examples online that sort of have that old world, historical feel to them - so far I've found these two that we kinda like:

You like?

Some Kitchen Ideas

I am bored so I thought I would post some of our ideas for the house. :)

First off, the kitchen. I have my heart set on cabinets with a dark espresso finish. To lighten it up, we're planning on pairing them with a white/offwhite granite or travertine counter top. The picture to the left will give you an idea of what we're thinking. For the flooring, we definitely want to go with slate. I think we'll go with a neutral beige/tan/cream mixture so it's not too overwhelming.

The thing I'm struggling with the most lately is the backsplash. (We might not do this right away to save money, but I'm bored so humor me).

I'm torn between doing something really neutral in a shade that matches the floor, or go for something more dramatic. I know, I know, dramatic = trendy which is bad for resale. But God willing we are going to stay in this house for a long time so I might be a little more open to some trendiness. :)

Anyway, we are considering doing a mosaic tile in shades of brown that complement the cabinents. The pictures below will kind of give you an idea. We would do a darker grout though - so the effect wouldn't be so jarring. And of course we'd have to match the colors to the cabinents almost exactly in order for it to look right.

What do you think?

This Update is for Beth

There officially is no update. Still waiting on the new drawings from the architects...

*cue Jeopardy music*

P.S. I took off the sign-in feature to post comments - now anyone (read: Mom) can add their two cents without having to sign up for a google account. :)

And so it begins...

Hi everyone! Welcome! We decided to start this blog to keep all our friends and family updated on all the new house happenings. We will try to update this site regularly, including lots of pictures to document our pain- I mean progress. :) Please check back here often and feel free to leave comments!

Love, Melissa & Jeff

* * *

Initial Plans
From the very beginning, Jeff and I knew we wanted to build a house in the Victorian style, with a strong historical feel to it. We found a picture of a house online that we absolutely loved. It became the "inspiration house" that we gave to the architects:



About a month ago, our architect gave us the first draft of our exterior elevation, using the inspiration house as - well - the inspiration. :)

Here is what he came up with:

We were absolutely blown away!

The architects are currently working on the side and back exterior elevations, as well as the floor plan. We hope to get the second draft of these drawings by sometime next week and will be sure to post them when we do!

Oh and for those that don't know, this is going to be one heck of a makeover story. We have purchased the option on an extremely rundown house in a great location (I affectionately refer to it as our crack house) that will be torn down to it's studs, and then rennovated to match the drawing above. It's a pretty amazing process. You can see an example of this on our builder's website (click on the "Featured Work in Progess" arrows).

So, you wanna see how much work we have in front of us? Here is what the house looks like now!

Crack house:

From the back porch looking out to the back of the lot:

Back of the house (detached garage on the right):

Yard: