15 McHugh: Day 28

A month has gone by already, and it feels like we are no further ahead. Probably because we almost aren't.

The clearing of the land is done, but the grade was too high and is currently being dropped 2 feet. Holy dirt!

We've been in talks with our geo-thermal/in-floor heating contractor, and things are looking good on that front. We'll be digging 6 foot deep piping trenches in the back yard before too long.

The aforementioned contractor #2 couldn't take on our project, so we defaulted back to
contractor #1, who accepted the project and is due to start 1st week in Nov. If that holds up, our move in date would look to be late February. That'll give us a few months to fine tune the interior before the spring comes and we can start the landscaping. Good times. :)

One silver-lining is that the local truss company has become freed up and can build our trusses. Joy. We still may buy out of town due to some rumors we heard, but we'll see how that goes.

One bad thing about being late is that Nicole and I can only live in our current location (my aunt's house) until she returns mid December. That means moving in with either of our parents, or renting an apt for 3 or 4 months. The former offends our love of privacy, and the latter would be expensive and work laden (mostly because we'd have to find it, then furnish it).

In the meantime, via an old friend now working in the US, we have a high end home building firm reviewing our house plans to offer some free advice. Free is good! (http://www.horizonbuildersinc.net/) Thx Vic!

Terry

15 McHugh: Day 13

Holy nutz. If you aren't going to build a house turn-key, you should acquire project management skills before jumping into this. I have huge lists of phone numbers, estimates, dates, square footages, etc. It's a lot to manage, and that becomes apparent when talking to contractors who ask you questions you don't really know the answer to, but should.

So yeah, many delays. We were late getting things moving ourselves, so we dropped the ball on a couple of things. For one, the local truss company, Pro Truss, is booked up for the next 3 months, so we had to put out our plans to other towns for quotes. Pain in the ass given the distance. This should have been done long ago. Also, getting a certified contractor has become a problem again. The original guy is running very late (can't help us until mid November!) so we've started looking elsewhere. We found another certified guy, and this weekend he'll let us know if his team can take our project. They are currently doing two commercial buildings using RewardWall, and they can only take on one house before the building season ends. Hopefully ours!

In the meantime, Nicole and I have been searching for the best prices on various things we need: appliances, flooring, faucets, etc. We found a fantastic little store in Hare Bay called Jesse Collins and Sons. Highly recommended! They have a large stock and must move a great deal of it quickly because their prices are great. We are buying 1600 sq.ft. of BEAUTIFUL hardwood there, and so far their appliance quotes are the lowest. Chester Dawe in Gander has pretty good flooring prices too (recently bought out by Rona) so check out those guys before you buy.

TPC