But NO! Lots of things have happened. Most importantly, we got both our building permit and our construction loan, so there's no more hurdles for the house building. Well...other than the spring road restrictions, which is what we're waiting on now. Can't do anything about getting the driveway or foundation started until the heavy trucks are allowed on the roads again.
A couple weeks ago (before the road restrictions), we did have a great weekend at the property and got a friend to come and push the snow off the building site to help it dry out and thaw more quickly so when the restrictions are off, the land is ready.
After that we spent a glorious afternoon burning the brush pile that's up there, day dreaming and checking on the log ends.
I'm pleased to say that we checked a whole bunch of them all over the woodpiles, and most of them are already down to 12% or less. We don't know for sure about the ones under the tarps, but in the next few weeks, those are all getting cleaned up and restacked so we can spray them with the Borax solution. When we do that there will be a lot more space between each rank, and the logs will all get rotated, so most of those will end up lower down and exposed to the air.
We'll be able to tackle that project as soon as the snow melts and the ground dries up a little.
There are still some other things that be done at the property, and we were going to dig into them this weekend (my swingset!), but on Thursday and Friday, we got ten more inches of snow..... *sigh*
In the meantime, though, we've ordered all the hardware brackets for the timber frame, and got an excellent deal on them from a local metal cutter who we used to work with at the sign shop. He also cut a compass design we created and are planning to embed in the floor of the great room. I can't wait to see how that turned out.
Right after we signed on the loan, we went ahead and placed the order for the timbers so they will be here when we're ready for them. They are coming from a company over by Green Bay because he had really good prices, and could do the six huge 16" posts we need for the corners. I'm a little concerned that we had to mail him the full payment up front, but several people I've talked to don't seem to think that's unusual, so I'm just crossing my fingers that he's honest and does good work. We have no leverage now, which kind of pisses me off.
Our next step is to work on getting the electric run to the property. We filled out the paperwork today, and sometime this week we'll go down and sign it all, and Scott's going to get the electrician lined up to wire the pedestal.
I have been continuing to work on the bottle logs and am nearly done. We may already have enough, but by our rough estimates for the house, we're going to do about 50 more just to be safe. I have all the stuff, I may as well use it up.
What's actually been keeping us the busiest the last few weeks is action on the buildings!! Which was a total shocker, but the timing couldn't be better. We've had several showings, and a lot of interest, so it's been very exciting. We now have a signed purchase agreement for 20 and are hoping to hell this one goes through. We still have about six weeks to weather before the closing, so it's very nerve wracking. In the meantime, there's someone really interested in 18, and the tenant in 20 is also interested in buying 18, so we'll see if anything comes of all that. It would be so great if we could get them both sold off and not have to worry about that anymore.
We're in a little bit of a lull right now, but things are just about to really get going! I'm excited but also a little overwhelmed, which leaves me feeling kind of numb and unfocused a lot lately. I'm hoping once there's more physical action we can take, and more of the process we can control that I will be able to feel truly excited again.
