Our House

I mentioned in my last post that we had found house plans that we liked... actually, we found a couple, but they're quite similar and this is the one I like the best:

Can't you just see me living in there? I love the front of the house ~ the dormers and porch and rounded windows. There are a couple of things I don't like about it ~ the kitchen and laundry room are a little small and We'd make the breakfast nook into the dining room and open up the dining room to have one big great room. We'd make the garage a 2-car instead of 3 (like in the photo) and Tim wants to turn it so it faces the side of the house. Of course, there are only three bedrooms, which is why we would have to put it on the walkout basement.... and that is one of the things I like the very best about this house ~ it has an atrium off the back:

The back of the great room is open to below and I think all of the windows would really help keep the basement from feeling like a basement. However, the book doesn't include a floor plan for the basement, so I don't know if the actual plans would or if we'd have to come up with that on our own. The other house we like does have basement plans and they would work on this one too. We would need at least two more bedrooms down stairs and that is where the family/toy room would be. Oh, and of course, storage space!

However, nothing is happening so far! I was feeling really frustrated yesterday, there's so much red tape to get through before we can even get started. My dad is giving us three acres to build on, but the building codes out here in the middle of nowhere require five acres (or so we thought), my uncle owns the two acres adjacent so we could probably get it from him without too much of a problem. BUT, they wanted my dad to own the full 10 acres before he could give us 5. Which meant getting the land surveyed, which there is currently a 7 MONTH waiting list for! (Or that's what it would be if we couldn't pull some strings). Then, we were told that my parents already have a variance to have two dwellings on their property from when they moved my grandma's trailer (which actually belongs to my uncle) up here so they could take care of her....the trailer is still sitting here with renters now, and that would have to go. BUT, the variance is on the property in my dad's name and the bank won't loan on a house that is not on our own property, which brought us back to our starting point. Then we found out that we could apply for a variance on the whole 5 acre requirement and that the county will typically accept as little as 2 1/2 acres.... but again we'd have to have the land surveyed (with the 7 MONTH wait). The surveyors needed the deed to the property before they could put us on their waiting list....and of course my parents have no idea where it is. SO, Tim went to the county courthouse today to get a copy from them (and even they had a hard time finding it) and FINALLY, some good news! There are two different deeds on my dad's property, which have been combined only for tax purposes but can be separated back out. One for the five acres his home is on, and another for the three we're going to build on. So, my dad can just quitclaim deed the three acres to us. Tim talked to the surveyor and he said that we probably don't even need to have it surveyed, we just need to get the health dept. to grant us a variance to build on only three acres and we're good to go! Or good to start on the LOOOONG list of requirements they gave us...although this was all part of steps 2 & 3. (#1 was our name, address, and phone #.)

Sorry, this got kind of long. But now that I have you all caught up to speed, I'll try to post more often about it