Let the digging begin

Our fence was installed March 12th and approved by the City on the 20th. The landscape crew began moving plants this past Monday for re-vegetation which is required by the City. As for the cacti - we're saving a few of the barrels, but the rest will hopefully go...not a fan of the prickers!

So today is the 26th of March. We rode our bikes to the lot tonight (up hill...in the wind...what the heck) and the excavation crew has made some decent headway in just three days! It's cool seeing the big bulldozer and backhoes on the lot...I was tempted to climb on the bulldozer and start moving dirt...but I could not find the key.

We're told it will take about a month to get the lot prepped and retaining walls built. The fun will begin when the framing starts - so in the meantime, we're making plans to meet with the pool folks and looking a cool (God awful expensive) kitchen appliances.

3 Year Recap - You get what you pay for!

Holy cow - I can't believe it has been almost 3 years to the date that we purchased our lot. In hindsight - with the yucky economy - buying a lot was probably not the best idea. On the flip side, now is a great time to build as prices are cheap and contractors are hungry for work. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out a few years down the road.

Ok - so for a quick recap...we bought the lot in March 2006....waited a little over a year for the Home Owners Associations (HOA) to acquire permits, install roads and move utilities underground. We then started working with an architect to design the house based on ideas from the fourteen million houses we looked at in advance (Joe has his real estate license so we were able to view a ton of empty houses for layout ideas). Our architect was great in the beginning but failed to follow through in the end. Thankfully, we found another architect who was very familiar with Las Sendas requirements and he finished up the plans. Important to note, we tried to save a dime in the beginning by selecting a cheaper architect - we got what we paid for and should have selected an experienced architect from the get-go.

Our first general contractor (GC) was a different story - a complete nightmare to say the least. Let our big mistake be a lesson for anyone out there....do your research and listen to your gut! Not only are we out a bunch of money, but we lost time and chunks of hair from pure frustration.
After parting ways with the first GC, we were able to find a great company to manage our construction.

The last 6 months were spent going through HOA and City approvals....we received final approval on March 6th so let the fun begin! I just asked Joe to guess our move in date (based on CO)...he predicts December 16th. I'm guessing January 8th. Stay tuned to see if we are close!