Over three months have passed since our last entry, which happened to be the day before we bid adieu to city life. We are finally settling in to country life after dealing with numerous issues that Indy should have remedied. (It's probably best that I waited until now to post this last entry to let my fury subside.) Indy finally completed our driveway a week after we moved, and all our attempts to get him to pick up this monstrous pile of junk beside our house were futile. We finally hired a company ourselves to handle it. Best money we've spent so far...other than on the yard, which we also had to handle on our own. We had countless rocks covering our yard that had to be removed before seed could be sown or sod could be laid. Luckily, our neighbor (come on, you know Noel's already befriended them all) gave Noel the name of a guy (whose name ironically was Guy, ha!), who had a machine called a rock hound, basically a rock scavenging machine. We had a new yard by the time he was finished. Oh, between that and the empty space that was once the trash pile I didn't think I could be any happier until we discovered grass. Noel and Dad sewed grass seed immediately after Guy finished his work; however, we had been doing some research on sod and found that prices weren't as ridiculous as we thought they would be. We decided to lay some sod in the front and side yards to boost morale around this homestead and, boy, did it! It took all day one Sunday for four of us (Noel, Dad, Mom, and myself -- although at seven and a half months pregnant this girl took several more breaks than the majority) to lay ten palates of sod (each palate covers 450 square feet). You want to talk about being sore for days. Wow! The sod, however, quickly met Ruthie's approval, and the seed is coming up nicely to blend in where the sod stops. (You see we certainly couldn't have sodded the whole yard, and even if we wanted to, I seriously doubt we could coax our two helpers into taking on the challenge again.)
Our frustrations spanned much wider than just with Indy. We have also had bank issues. We still do not have a mortgage, because the bank and Quicken Loans do not see any need for speed in such a process. We have already locked in a rate once and lost it, and the process will restart in only a few days. We have also dealt with a post-construction appraisal that fell short of the pre-construction appraisal. (How that is possible, I have no idea. I have fought tooth and nail with the bank and the loan company about that appraisal but to no avail. The appraisal is an issue because it affects how much of our construction loan can be rolled over into a mortgage. Needless to say, we got screwed over yet again. We are now going to have to carry a two mortgages. What fun!) I digress. Hopefully, we'll have a mortgage by the end of October.
Frustrations aside, the whole process was totally worth it. We have the house of our dreams and a much quieter life (until we welcome our little Isaac or Lydia in another month, anyway) with Sox and Marley...oh, I mean Ruthie. We are glad we did it, and in hindsight, we'd do it again (but we'd rather not).
The grass makes it look like a real house!
Noel's view from our hammock (that he wasted the day away in...said all he needed was his house, his dog, and his hammock...work is overrated...I agree).
Many, many thanks for all the support from our family and friends in this process. We hope that somewhere in this process someone may have taken away something helpful. We now have a wealth of knowledge, though now probably very useless to us, about this whole housebuilding/dealing with your contractor/banking process. You live and you learn. Then, you get mad as hell and take matters into your own hands.
