bees and trees

Marcus and I went up to our new future homesite yesterday. We walked 68 steps hoping to see where our Garage would start, and then looked around and figured we miscalculated, we then gave up on that. We walked the property line though, and saw in the back of our property is a fence, pretty close to the line, then Marcus saw the bees! 2 Big cages, I guess the guy we are buying from harvests honeybees and gets honey, not too bad except I am allergic to bees, and they are awfully close to our property line. So I will be emailing the realtor about that tomorrow. We saw a few trees we will need to take down. I guess the guy we are buying from didnt think too much about junking up the property line, since it was his. I guess its not a big deal. He did plant some locust trees, I am not a fan of those. I read about them, they like to multiply and grow "thickets" Anyone know anything about locust trees?  Well other then the bees and trees, the Realtor called us Saturday to tell us the public water and sewer were paid for. So we should see the subdivision finalized soon. I keep looking at books and online, trying to get all the little details ironed out. I am so excited! I want to start tomorrow!! Marcus and I had a great weekend too, we went up to the Sands Friday, and ate at our favorite place, St James Pub. I love it there! We didnt fare too well on the games, so left quickly. We grilled out Saturday night, and also tonight. We touched up a lousy painting job on our porch on Arch Street. Never answer "handyman" adds in the penny power! It was a great weekend. Now ready for a short week, and hopefully more home developements! We will have like 2 months until settlement.. Things cant happen quick enough!

met another builder........

Tonight we met another builder, Marcus' first and my second. I have a feeling this may be one of the hardest decisions... well maybe until we get the estimates! I like him (I am not going to mention any names), and he seemed to be ok with everything we wanted in our home. He is very familiar with the Township, so that is a plus. He said they are easy to work with! We received the signed agreement the other day, also a plot plan. A plot plan shows where we can build at on the property. Every Borough/Township has "setbacks" which is how far from the street you can build, how far from the back of the property line, and side of the property line. Our set back is 50 feet from the front and back, and 15 1/2 feet from each side. We have no problem with the sides... but as it turns out, this house plan i have been drawing for months just makes our front-back requirement by 6 inches!! The length of our plot of land is 165 feet long, and take 50 off for the front, and 50 off for the back you are left with 65 feet, which is how deep our house can be. My drawing is 64 1/2 feet deep! I couldn't believe i was that close! It's pretty cool though.Well I also got my pamphlet for Certainteed Fiber Cement siding. We are going fiber cement, but which color? We are thinking two toned- horizontal on the bottom, and shakes on the top.. but since Marcus has a hard time seeing colors, its kind of hard to find one. Well we have a lot of time for that. Well that's all the information needed for one night.

preliminary plans

This could change a lot, if we meet with builders and they tell us it will cost way more then what we think it'll cost. But take a sneak peek at a few pictures of our house to be. I use a house program called "TurboFLOORPLAN Home & Landscape Pro" to draw this. I like the black and white renderings. The 3rd picture is a view from the back of the house... Marcus wants windows for natural light, and a vaulted ceiling which is open from the second floor. That's about all I will say and show on the house for now. Hopefully Monday we will get the fully executed Agreement of Sale (AOS) and maybe some plot plans. I took a walk around the lot today, had my camera but the batteries were dead. It is all flagged out, with 3 concrete monuments. I looked for the 4th corner, but didnt see one there.. I did see a lot of poison ivy though. Guess thats not too bad.. Its a pretty clear level lot, only a few dogwoods which will come down once we are ready to break ground. This week we will be starting to contact builders and Milford Township.

an exciting begining

Yesterday Marcus and I put in our offer on Lot 1 Freier Road. WE ARE GONNA BUILD A HOUSE!
We are so excited, its all starting. If you know me, you know I always dreamed of building my own house. My style is Arts and Crafts. Our new house plan, is a nice little Cape Cod Style Bungalow type home.
I took a plan I saw online, re-drew it to suit our needs and scaled it down to fit into our budget. We are ready!
We Have settlement July 21st, that should give us enough time to make sure this lot will work for us.
So far I met with one builder, Marcus is letting me feel them out first. I need to set up meetings with a couple more.  I figured this blog would be a neat way to keep up with us, and the building process. We will try to update as our journey progresses.... and hopefully post pictures as we go.