Rolling Along On the House

And now, for another house update.

We are eeking ever closer to actually starting to build a house.

Yes, that sentence is an accurate portrayal of the amount of action happening with this project.
I'm telling you, this building process is like being towed by snails through a sea of molasses. It is G-O-I-N-G S-O S-L-O-W.

There has been progress. Some progress. We have final - FINAL! - house plans. That's pretty damn exciting. We've been working on them since flippin' March, but I tell you it was worth it. I luv them. I can walk through the entire house in my head, and it becomes more real with each choice of outlet height and plumbing fixture we make.

We've also gone in front of the County Commission and squeaked through a 2/1 vote to allow us to zone. After listening to 2 1/2 hours of meeting, they made this decision. After talking about our case for one ENTIRE HOUR of that time, the two meeker commissioners finally found their cojones and voted down the stronger commissioner to give us what we need. I had no idea it was such a big deal.

We MAY even be able to go straight to applying for a building permit, though no telling when the zoning department will make up their minds about that. It is fascinating to watch the wheels of local government work. They're digging back 10-20 years on our title to find out the answer to a question that I'm not convinced is relevant in the first place. I guess they need to stay busy so they can keep their phony baloney jobs. Harrumph!

We're also talking to builders. We have bids out to 4 guys, and another that wants to bid it. There are 2 front-runners at this point, but we're still trying to understand all the details well enough to know if the bids are apples to apples or not. Likely, they won't be, but I would still like to understand if the difference is made up of supplies or their margin. It would make the decision a little easier.

Any way we put it, we're going to be spending kind of a scary amount of money on the house. I don't think it's anything we can't handle, but the raw numbers are a bit shocking. Kind of scary exciting, this house building stuff.

The Little Man is pretty stoked about the new house too. He knows where his room is on the plans, and what all the other rooms are too. In the midst of this, he's started to get interested in the concept of money, but doesn't really understand dollar values yet.

"Mommy, how much is our house"

"Two dollars"

"Wow! Two dollars." He pauses for a minute. "Mom, our new house is going to be five dollars. It's going to be so awesome."

Yes, yes it is.