House Building: Finally Underway

Our house is finally being built! Finally, finally, finally!! I hope that I can say that the process was a fun one when it was all said and done, but, so far, it has been pretty darn stressful. I had a long post all typed out last night to tell y'all all about it, but when I pushed "Publish," the whole darn thing disappeared.


So, today, I will try to hit the highlights (lowlights, really):

1. We started on the house back in November and immediately had a stop order placed on the house.

2. We had to have our plans completely redrawn to show a more beefed up foundation -- one that is earthquake proof. And we don't live in an earthquake zone.



3. Brad had meeting after meeting with our building inspector and the building inspector of a neighboring county who acts as a consultant -- and makes all of the decisions, evidently -- for our county. A lot of frustration ensued.



4. We finally got somewhere when we realized that the new, beefed up foundation was going to cost us many, many thousands of dollars and Brad went in, with maps, and showed the building inspector exactly where our house is going to be compared to the earthquake zones. Thankfully we got some leniency.



5. We finally got to start on January 5th! So far we have gotten the trenches for the foundation dug, the rebar started, the well in, and power to the site.

6. We had our first inspection yesterday, the 19th. And we passed! Robert, our contractor, was completely prepared to fail because of all of our previous dealings with the inspector, so he had today set aside to redo whatever the inspector wanted redone. When he found out that we passed he sent Brad a text that was pure shock: "we passed! Thank God!" My thoughts, exactly!

7. Brad just texted me a picture of the concrete truck at the house. They are pouring the concrete for the foundation!

The Lord is definitely trying to teach me some patience with this house project, and I hate to admit that I have been kicking and screaming about it. I just have felt like this house was never going to get off the ground, but it finally has. I just can't wait (though I will have to for a loooonnnggg time!) to see the finished product!