The House That Built US Week 4 - Block

Saturday the hubs and I went out on a day date. We pretty much drove around looking at houses, doors, brick, siding, and more. We started by going to a neighborhood about 15minutes away where we were told the exact house we are building was built. We were going to leave noted in the mailbox but when we pulled up the owner was outside in his truck. After talking with him a minute and telling him we would be happy to schedule a time to come back he invited us in. It was such an awesome thing to be able to see what it will look like (minus the changes we are making). They also did a more gray, white and black color scheme which was perfect! The kitchen cabinets were pretty much identical in color to what I have been thinking about but hadn't been able to find a picture of. They even had the downstairs finished! He was super helpful in telling us what he liked and what he wished they would have done different and offered for us to come back anytime!

  Week 4 began with more digging, everywhere, like there literally is dirt everywhere! Pretty sure these first two are electric and water lines that run back to the house. 

They poured the rest of the footers on Monday and drew the corners on the concrete. It is still so hard to get a good feel for where everything is going to be. I will be standing in the doorway and walk to the right and cannot figure if I am in Kinley's room, bathroom or spare bedroom...so confusing! 

I looked over and seen this little square of concrete poured. I am assuming that is going to be our mailbox. I can't figure out what else it could be! We have a mailbox slab! LOL  

I stopped by on Tuesday and they had some block there along with a whole bunch of gravel in the basement. As I walked around looking the neighbor walked down and introduced himself. He was very polite and even went on to apologize for the "misunderstanding" of the house placement. I greatly appreciated his honesty and hopefully it was a misunderstanding but gosh it is just hard to know with all the horror stories we have heard! Praying for an easy 6 months from this point forward!

We heard our contractor had a death in the family so I didn't want to bother him any more this week. After Punkin got home today from traveling for the week we went over there and there was a WHOLE LOT more block there along with a big pile of sand. I had asked our contractor on Monday when they would start laying block and he said probably next Monday! That means we will be getting basement walls in the week to come!! Really hoping the weather keeps holding out, it has been phenomenal here lately! 

Just a little game of catch me if you can around the footers! 

That's a lot of sand! 

Little by little we are seeing more changes. I am still just amazed how quickly it seems to be going. 

Praising God for being with us this far. It seems as though when we have questions or are confused about what choices to make he always puts something right in front of us and we both step back and say "wow that is exactly what we had pictured!" I am not worthy of his grace and answered prayers but yet he walks with us each step of the way! 

Until next week!

~Mel

The House that Built US Week 3 - Dirt

Changes are happening everyday this week and they have got me excited!!

Big Red

Sunday evening we took my papaw over to see the property and Big Red was there (that is what I have named the dumpster). The kids thought it was the neatest thing and wanted to play on it! I was rather surprised by how clean it was!



Monday rolled around the they officially broke ground! Let me just praise God for a moment and say he heard my prayer and they had no problems digging the basement. It was such a worry of ours that they would hit rock or something when digging that would make the cost of the house jump. They didn't and digging went just as smoothly as it could have. PTL!

They had to build up the house some to be level with the road so they were layering the clay where the driveway and garage is going to be. Tuesday they were digging the footers out and Wednesday the rebar went in the footers and they were ready for inspection on Thursday. We found out that Blount county only has 1...yes you read that right ONE inspector for the WHOLE county. That could create a problem down the road as we are trying to move in a timely manner and we have to stop for days and wait on them. Y'all know I don't like to wait....God must be planning to teach me patience. 

We have a BIG HOLE!

Building it up! 

Tuesday they started digging footers! 

There is the front door again! :)

Oh and while I was there Tuesday the guy show up with the potty and OF COURSE I had to document it with a picture! 

We met with Kevin on Wednesday and pick up samples of garage door colors, shutter colors, front doors and stone pamphlets. We have a front door picked out and have one estimate, just waiting on a second to come back but we are 99% sure of what we are getting. Oh and we did have a little snafu in the plans. In our house we will have a walk in attic meaning we have steps that go up to a door and walks directly into the attic. Since there are steps and it could potentially be "finished" space we have to have a exit window. Well the exit window was too big for the space so we had to shorten one part of the front to widen the other...oh my gosh so much to figure out! Thankful for my husband and contractor for taking care of the hard stuff! 

Thursday they finished putting the posts in the footer, had the inspection that went great and we were set up for concrete today! 

I managed to refrain from going over there 15 times today since I was off and waited until the hubs got home from work so we could go together. The concrete guys were leaving when we got there and we now have concrete in the basement footers!! WOOP WOOP!! 

We are moving right along and I am excited to see what next week brings! We are currently preparing our house to be put on the market. That means lots of purging of toys, clothes and crap...yep lots and lots of crap!  Wish me luck folks!

~Mel

The House that Built US Week 2

It amazes me the excitement I feel from all the little things! 

First of all I am happy to report that the HOA president spoke with the neighbor. His response was "he was confused" on where our house sit. 😒 Yeah, it only had 12 stakes and string wrapped all the way around it but whatever dude! Hopefully he learned that we weren't going to be easy to bully.

Yes this is a picture of the Temp Pole ;)

Not a whole lot of big physical changes happening but we have had some great things going on! The electric company came out and set the temp pole, the surveyor came out and set the house in the area we had staked out and he used a lot more stakes! It was so neat to be able to go over and "walk over my front porch" then "walk up to my front door". 

Not our MB Closet but the look we are going for minus the island
and the cabinets...lol

We had some debate over where we are putting our washer and dryer so we spent the better of one night measuring out our master bedroom closet and seeing how it would go best. I have to say this is one of the things I am most excited about! I have always thought it made the most sense to have the W&D closest to the majority of the clothes and towels I use and wear! We have extended our MB closet to run the entire length of our MB and will have the W&D at the end of it! 

We went to floor decor again last weekend and I picked out a tile for my foyer. I LUUURRRVVVEEE it!!! 

😍😍😍😍😍

This morning the Tuckaleechee water company called me (this is where I went last week to pay them to set the tap). When she told me who she was I immediately felt my stomach drop...what's wrong?!?! 
She proceeded to tell me that the man went out to set the tap and there was already one there! YAY but not only that she was sending us our money back! SAY WHAT?!?! That is just a PRAISE GOD moment right there y'all!! They made a trip and didn't even charge us for it!! I will take more phone calls like that in the future please!

We met with the contractor tonight and all that we are waiting on is the phone call saying her can pick up our building permit. We are on the schedule to break ground Monday or Tuesday of next week. 😄

Those 4 stakes in the middle will be my front door

Lotsa stakes

We are trying to decide on a front door now so I am off to the door store for books and prices today. I have in mind what I like but sometimes my taste can be a little on the pricey side but here is to sticking to the budget given to me! 🍷

So far the hubs and I are agreeing on about 99% of everything we discuss and things we pick out. I know there is a lot more to come but I really am excited to do this with him. Our taste is very similar and that makes things so much less stressful and if I tell him it saves us money I don't think he would much care what it was at all! LOL I just ask that you continue to pray for us as we walk this journey together. I pray this will strengthen our marriage and it will be one more thing that makes me admire and love my husband even more than I thought I possibly could. 😘👫

Also please pray that as we begin to break ground next week we will not run into any problems such as rock or stone in the ground that could really hurt us. I don't believe we will have that issue but that is probably my biggest fear at this moment. Thanks you all!! 

Til' next week,
Mel

The House That Built US- Week 1 The Nosey Neighbor

Well for months while we were looking for the perfect piece of property we heard horror stories of people who have built homes in Smoky Hills. Everything from nosey neighbors to NIGHTMARE of an HOA. It was one of the things that made purchasing our lot such a hard decision. We prayed and prayed about it and even took the step of getting HOA approval on our plans and staking out our home on the lot before we even closed on the land. I don't like confrontation so the smartest thing to do would of course be iron everything out beforehand...right??

On the day we went to meet with the HOA president I was a nervous wreck...should I bake him cookies or would that seem like too much of a suck up?? Literally every scenario went through my head. I wrote up a letter detailing out our plans and that we had already staked the house on the lot. I asked for approval before we closed on the property. We got to sit and talk with him and his wife for a while that evening and I left feeling very refreshed. They were super nice people who will make great neighbors! It had been a few years since anyone built in there so maybe things had changed.

After the first meeting with our contractor he came back to us with a nervousness of building a home in this neighborhood. He himself had heard horror stories for contractors who had built for customers in this neighborhood. We assured him that we were confident with our HOA president and that we will not have any problems.

We met two more times over the past month with the the HOA president and both times were truly enjoyable. We understand the importance of keeping the neighborhood nice, to keep up property values while also realizing that each person has their own taste in homes, decor, etc. I felt no reservations at all.

This week my two tasks were a) setup the new water service b) set up new electric service. I managed to get those done on Tuesday, sent over all the info to our contractor and felt accomplished....and then it happened.

While our contractor was at our property today setting the water tap flag a neighbor a few houses down from ours stopped by. He thought maybe a friendly hello but before you know it he was telling my contractor to stop his work because we couldn't put our house where we had staked it out. Our house had to be in line with all the other houses on the street. **SIDE NOTE there are only 3 on that side and none of them line up. Well the restrictions state that we have to have setbacks of 30feet from the fronts and 12.5' on the sides. Our home is at a 40.5' setback from the road and well within the side set backs.

There is not issue with our house except that it isn't where "this neighbor" would prefer it to be. My contractor though wasn't quite sure how to handle this guy as he knew him on a more personal level so he called us. We immediately called the president of the HOA and told our contractor to proceed with the his work. Once he called us back he assured us that as long as we were within the setbacks given in the restrictions we were fine to proceed. This guys may prefer it one way but we are not breaking any rules and his preference doesn't give him the right to come on my property and stop my contractor. This is where Sweet Southern Mel turns into MEAN Southern Mel. ;) He said he would speak with this neighbor about it but again we can put the house where we want it.

Day 3 and it has already began with the nosey bully. At this time I will just call him nosey neighbor but I sure hope he keeps his nose within his own property lines for the duration of this process.

I see now why this little blog will be a great place for me put all these memories. I am sure one day I will look back and laugh on all this...it just may be a while!!  I also hope that this little blog will bring you all some humor at the absurdness of some people! :)

Hoping to be back next week with ground breaking and no neighbor stories but for now I am enjoying the Contractors sign (yes something so little brings me such excitement and joy) and that beautiful view through the trees! 

Much Love,

Mel