A SNAFU or Two

Snafu #1: Even though we didn't move last weekend, the mail began forwarding there starting on Friday. I sort of forgot about that when I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon! JP or I have been making daily trips out there to check the mail. Luckily everything has come in without problems, including the new checks.

Snafu #2: Apparently I asked the phone company to switch our phone & DSL over when I called to get a work order for the new phone lines. Forgot about that one too...so we lost phone on Monday, and DSL by Tuesday AM. On Monday, after spending about 30 minutes on my cell phone (and completely losing it, yelling "This not acceptable!"), I was assured that it would be restored by the end of the day. On Tuesday, after the internet went out, they got it turned back on in about an hour, with only 20 minutes on the phone. As of Monday, they still had not connected the phone lines to the house, although they brought it up the hill below the power lines.

Snafu #3: The propane contact person at CGI International finally got back in touch with JP yesterday. Since he complained that our driveway was too steep on Friday, he talked to his lawyers. They advised him that having us as customers is too great of a liability to assume, and they no longer want our business. (*&&%#$%^*^*&$) Now we are scrambling to find another company without lawyers.

Snafu #4: There was a snarling raccoon in a cage trap in our driveway when I arrived today. The builder told me they caught it in the cabinets...then laughed when my eyes bugged out and said his uncle caught it up the road. Not really a snafu I guess...

The house is all painted now. Can you believe that 2 of the guys painted the ENTIRE thing BY HAND??? Kudos to M & M!!! The railings on the deck and the porch look nice.

It is darker than we expected, but as you can tell by this shot next to the garage, it is actually really close to the color of the block.

Two of the built-ins in the Great room are nearly complete. This is the entertainment center in the corner by the Library.

This will be a china cabinet in the corner by our bedroom. There will be a plant shelf across the entire wall above these cabinets, then 2 more corner shelves up by the upper windows. These are for things that will get dusted once a year...if they're lucky!

Handy Guy S was out on Monday and did some more clearing where my parents plan to build. He took down a few more trees than he intended because they were rotten...he didn't want one to fall on the house down the road sometime.

I took another load of stuff from the apartment to the house. I'm glad to see it go!

Week One - No Progress

I drove over to Poplar Ridge today with the girls. Nothing is happening over there...no well, no excavation, no new power poles. On a positive note, it looks as though things are happening faster than expected for drilling for Natural Gas with Patriot, so we may be getting our "free gas" along with the new house instead of later! Also, we have a signed contract of sale for our current house, so things ARE happening, just not at Poplar Ridge!

Step One...the setting

it doesn't look like much at this point...2005

3 years ago, while tooling around on the Internet, my husband came across a listing on Realtor.com for 48 acres for sale in Waynesburg, PA. My parents, who are planning to retire in 2010 and relocate from Reading, PA to Greene Co., urged us to jump at the chance, and gave us significant help in purchasing the property. They are extremely excited to build there, close to us. My Dad is going to build his dream house, a hexagonal log cabin, with his own hands.

We planned to build on the property too, at some point. This was a vague, cloudy sort of dream until last year when we asked my brother to design us a house. My brother, F, is a gifted artistic person, and conveniently, an Architect. On the downside, he lives in Austin, TX...a bit more than driving distance from our homestead! F took our sketches and ramblings, and turned them into a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the masterpiece would cost about twice what we could afford to pay, so he (very patiently) re-drew and re-worked until we ended up with the final plans that look something like this.

proposed house

In the meantime, we have done quite a bit to develop the property. We had about 3 acres cleared on the top of the hill, put in a LONG drive, developed a spring for water, put in a septic system and electricity. We have also had the opportunity to use it as the great hunting grounds for the past 2 years.

the road going in...Nov. 2006

aerial view from summer 2007 with rough boundary lines...you can see the area we cleared!

the first electric pole...9/14/08!!

Today, we signed for our construction loan, and met with our builder at the property. After a strange conversation involving which trees were staying and why, I heard the words that nearly stopped my heart: "I think we can start excavating next week!" It's hard to believe that this in-the-clouds project is really going to happen!!

this is our building site...on top of the hill!

We are trying to sell our current house ourselves. After working to create an information website for that, I feel like a pro, and wanted to document this undertaking in a blog. On top of that, I decided to homeschool my daughter for Kindergarten this year (we are doing Agora Cyber Charter School), so the upheaval in my life at the moment seems overwhelming at times. But it's good...it's all good.

Thus begins the House on Poplar Ridge.