Hello all! We have some exciting news to share and thought we’d get back to blogging so you don’t miss anything. As you may know, Amanda and I bought a foreclosure about five months ago. We have been watching this house since October of 2010, so nearly a year later, construction is going to begin! We’ve pulled the trigger with our contractor, Matt Davenport, and he is going to start demo work on the back room as soon as permits are in hand. Should be Monday or Tuesday. Just a few days after the demo starts, the foundation repair guy will get going. He will be repairing the existing foundation, not pouring the new section. We have to wait a month or so after the old foundation is repaired before pouring the new to give the old a chance to settle and make sure there aren’t going to be any issues. Timing on the waiting period worked out perfectly since we’ll be on vacation for two of those weeks.
After we get back, there will be a two-week calm before the storm of the remodel gets going. Here’s how we hope things will go:
- early October – pour new foundation, start major construction (framing, roof, etc…)
- mid October – start landscaping install (irrigation and hardscape)
- early November – finish major construction & start finish work inside
- late November – move in!
There’s a lot of detail missing there, but this is our basic, hopeful timeline. If we get in before Christmas we’ll consider it a success.
Our neighbor to the North (left side if facing the house) has agreed to sell us a small sliver of her land! We’ll get an extra 50′ of breathing room. And, most importantly, we’ll be getting about half a dozen old growth live oaks! Yay! Here is a survey that shows our lot and the new chunk we’re getting =>
Here are some photos Amanda took today as our “Before” shots:
Our landscape designers have done our first round of design concepts. We’ve met with them a couple times and requested some changes that we should be getting back next week. Here is the first sketch they did for us. The changes aren’t really dramatic, so this gives you the rough idea. We’ll post the final landscape design plans in the next blog.
Here are some photos I’ve collected over the last year or so as design ideas for the landscape:
