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).