Ready to Frame (Except for the Snow)

It was hard to tell just how much progress had been made on the house when we showed up there this morning. After all, in the last week nearly two full feet of snow has fallen, which filled the trenches around what they had dug, poured and back-filled.

We both literally looked at each other with wonder this morning, uncertain what the next steps could possibly be with the mountain of snow and impending arctic temperatures that are anticipated.

"How are they going to finish pouring the foundation with all this snow and cold?"

The short answer, we learned this afternoon when we sat down with Sherri and Jereomy of TJB. The foundation has been completely poured and back-filled. They have everything done they need to get done currently in order to start framing the home. Our understanding from our meeting today is that barring any unforeseen issues, framing will begin late next week or early the following and should take about five weeks.

Over the weekend, we had a chance to talk with Sara's cousin Chad and cousin-in-law Ethan. We stayed with Ethan and Sara's cousin Brandie on the Michigan leg of our Christmas tour. Ethan built most of their gorgeous home. Chad is in the early stages of planning to build a home for his family. So obviously, they are well versed in this process.

We got lots of great advice from them, and other family (who knew that better garbage disposals alternate between clockwise and counterclockwise. Thank you Dick!) both on style and structure.

Early on, we had dismissed in-floor basement heat as a luxury we should probably go without. After talking with Chad and Ethan, we are a little confounded on this topic. Even roughing it in is far from cheap. But it is one of those things that you either do at the outset, or forgo forever. So do we have the tubes placed in the concrete now so as to not limit this option later? Is it too late anyway since they've already finished pouring the foundation and back-filling the lot?

We are still mulling this one over, but it does help to know that it is a very efficient heating mechanism. Because it radiates heat upwards throughout the home using hot water in the tubes below the floor, it actually takes some pressure off the furnace as the sole source of heat. I suppose over time, it technically pays for itself. It is also a perk for resale.

It isn't too late, which was nice to hear. But it is close to too late, so we have to decide in the next few days.

Anyway, bottom line is we aren't sure (which is interesting since the reason we aren't sure is because of the bottom line).

We locked down our window selections today (signed the change order), and think we are pretty close to being set on a front door.

I'm looking forward to spending the weekend with Sara doing a lot of house centered work. We're looking at stone and appliances on Saturday, and plumbing next Tuesday. In between all of that, we'll probably finish the selection of the front door, and near a conclusion on the outdoor color scheme. Tom from TJB committed today to giving us the upgraded painted shakes at the same price as the cedar shakes in the spec book. Sherri has that in her notes, we have it in ours and now it is on the Internet forever in case Tom forgets when they go to order the shakes.

Sunday on ABC's Extreme Home Makeover, they will be airing an episode of a makeover in St. Paul that was TJB's second build for the show in Minnesota. We're looking forward to going to a showing with many of the people involved with TJB and ABC in this project right up here in Blaine. I played a small role helping them attract some local politicians during the build, so technically we were a volunteer for this Extreme Home Makeover. I'm actually not sure how they'd have done it with out us (which, of course, is totally untrue).

So watch Extreme Home Makeover this Sunday if you want to see the folks who are building our home.

Here are a couple pictures of our snow covered foundation from this morning.

Backfill and Foundation

Sara and I were able to go out to the land yesterday with our friends Eric, Nicole and EJ who are in town for Christmas from Virginia. It was awesome to be able to show them the progress, and to sort of point to where the part of the home will be that will be their guest room whenever they are able to make it back to MN to visit.

I spoke with the guys who are doing the foundation this morning, and they said that they are going to work all day today to try to get the lot backfilled before the impending five day blizzard they are predicting.

I took a couple more photos of the progress. Sara and I are heading East to Wisconsin and then Michigan for Christmas. We're looking forward to spending some time with her family and setting work, school and so forth aside for a few days. Can't wait to get the call from my sister Kari. Her daughter Peyton Helen is due to join us anytime now. Each phone call is answered with the assumption that she is heading to the hospital.

Looking forward to seeing the progress here when we return next week. And we have appointments scheduled and plans for showroom visits for stone and brick, all of our plumbing, and the appliances.

Merry Christmas!!!

Foundation 2.0

I swung by the lot this morning and again this afternoon. Either the neighbors are going to think an unemployed guy is moving in next door, or the builders are going to think I'm obsessive/compulsive (I think I'm generally the opposite, whatever that is).

Bright and early this morning, there was a team of about eight guys getting ready to do more work on the foundation. They still had more moldings to install, and will continue to have more cement to pour over the course of the next few days. From talking to one of the guys, it sounds like they may be able to pour all of the foundation and have the moldings removed before Christmas (which means in the next two days). It is amazing to see the development. The pillars which will be on the porch appear to be poured. There is a pretty cool picture from the back yard that shows all of that they've accomplished. And the whole foundation is really coming together.

Tonight, our friends Eric, Nicole and little EJ are coming to town for Christmas. They are staying with us this evening, and hopefully we are all able to head over to Aspen Bay in the morning before they make the trek up North.

We're very close at this point (like 45 minutes) to finalizing the windows and doors. At least the sizes of them. They tell us it is easier to frame the house when you know where they need to have openings for windows and doors. Who knew?

Next step is finalizing shingles, shakes and siding. I think we're close on those choices too.

Foundation

foun⋅da⋅tion 

House Guests

What a difference a few days means for the building process. The pictures from the day of our ground breaking, while it was cold, were at least taken when the ground was clear. You'll see towards the bottom of this post, that the foundation of our home is now pretty well covered with snow. Obviously this is slowing down the process, which is ok base on our current time line.

As I'd mentioned earlier, we were invited to a party down the street from our home-to-be with neighbors Dianna and Mark Peterson. Because it was a long week, and because Sara flew in Friday evening, we didn't end up making it to the party. Would have been fun to have met a bunch of the new neighbors, but last week was pretty chaotic, and both of us were totally exhausted. Thank you for the invite though, we look forward to the next opportunity to meet people.

Saturday and Sunday, we technically had our first house guests since TJB broke ground. Our friends Jeff and Melissa hung out with us Saturday evening and we were able to show them the snow covered foundation in the dark before a nice night of fondue, wine and Wii.

Just today, my mom was down and we were able to see the lot during the day with her. We also toured the model home next door which has now been sold (we met the new owners a month or so ago, and they are moving in at the end of January.) And we spent an hour or so driving around with my mom looking at front doors, shakes and shingles (those are some of our first choices in the upcoming weeks). It was fun to be able to show my mom where we'll be living, and for us all to drive around and look at all of the options ahead.

So for the first time since we've had the foundation hole dug, I guess we've had house guests at our new house. That's kind of fun.

It will be interesting to see over the next week if we are able to get anything further completed. The hope was for them to have actually poured the cement before we had this kind of weather. Best laid plans I guess. The forecast ahead doesn't look any warmer, so I supposed it is possible that we're going to have to wait until after Christmas for that. Thankfully, we're in no rush, but it would sure be nice to get this thing framed before 2010. But we can't control the weather.

We were reminded again while driving around just how awesome this neighborhood is going to be. It was about 2:30pm in the afternoon, and we saw about 5 deer. Snapped a good picture of one of them just hanging out. The Realtor hosting an open-house in the model next door said they see wild turkey too.

You can see from the pictures that even with the trees as barren as they get, we still have pretty significant woods coverage in our back yard. Will be awesome sitting on the deck in the summer with deer and turkey wandering around.

All Wrapped Up in Blankets Just In Time for Winter

Sara had an early (well, earlyish) flight this morning, and we decided to see what they completed at the lot yesterday before we headed to the airport.

They told us yesterday that as they dug the hole, they would be placing these huge insulating blankets on the land to prepare it for when they pour the concrete. When we arrived this morning, we were greeted with a humongous pile of dirt and the levels of our house all wrapped up in blankets.

It was certainly not too early either as winter storm warnings arrived in Minnesota, and snow now covers the ground.

Sara and I talked about this tonight on the phone. It seems likely that the snow tonight, along with impending blizzards for the next few days, will bring TJB to a temporary standstill Obviously we could be wrong, but judging by the difficulties our fellow Minnesotans were having navigating the roads this evening, I'd be surprised if there is a lot of activity with heavy equipment over the next few days.

I received a Facebook message this morning from one of the neighbors down the street. She and her husband are having a Christmas Party this Friday. We do have one mutual friend, so it is possible when Dianna wrote that she heard "through the grapevine" that we are building in the neighborhood that it was through that connection. If not, then the grapevine may just be neighborhood conversation generally. There are only a handful of houses currently under construction, and ours is obviously the most recent. Either way, we continue to be impressed (and even shocked to a certain extent) at how awesome the new neighbors seem to be. Everyone we've met has been friendly and seemingly excited. Sara gets back from California Friday evening, so I'm not sure we'll make the party. But if we do, it sounds like we'll get to meet 30-40 other neighbors, which would certainly be cool. Hope to see you Friday Dianna (and Mark).

For now, and possibly for the near future, this is the current state of the lot. While we're in no rush, we hope the weather doesn't stop progress for too long




.

Ground Breaking 2.0 More Photos

1. Sara and me
2. Sara, Jason and me
3. Me Digging Out the Basement (not really)
4. Digging of our Kitchen

Ground Breaking

Today, Sara and I were able to watch TJB Builders start to dig the foundation of our new home. What an incredible day. It was about 20 degrees out. The next few days have snow flurries to blizzards in the forecast. Nonetheless, a small crew was out there bright and early today to start digging and get our foundation poured and the walls framed before it gets too cold and before there is too much snow. It wasn't without hiccups. 20 degrees isn't the best weather for starting a backhoe, and they weren't able to get it running early enough to get started right when we arrived. At 8:00am, we were on site. The guys who were doing the digging had a Bobcat, and had the materials to pour the foundation all placed nicely on pallets in our yard. But no backhoe.



The two neighbor boys were home from school with their mom today. I can already tell we're going to get along well with their family. The kids were so excited to be able to watch the big machines dig up the yard. And all of them are very excited to have a home next to them rather than an empty lot. We left about 8:20 to go over to TJB for some meetings. In the next month, we need to make quite a few significant decisions, the first of which are siding, fascia and trim colors. We also have to select a front door. We made some exciting changes while at the TJB offices to the windows in several of the rooms. This included adding a few large picture windows which should be very nice. After leaving with all sorts of catalogs and color pallets, we went back to get a chance to watch them actually digging the property. It was awesome being there with Sara and having the opportunity to watch them dig different parts of what will soon be our home. When we arrived back at the lot, the neighbor boys were either still, or back, outside watching them dig away.

Plus, both Jereomy and Jason from TJB (Tom the owner's nephew and son respectively) came back out to the property to be with us as we watched this significant part of the build. I can see why they've built such a significant portion of all three phases of Aspen Bay, and I can see why Extreme Home Makeover has chosen them twice to build MN homes for their show. They have given us all the attention that we've needed as a customer. Perhaps it is because all building has slowed. I think it is more likely that they are just good with customer service, and have had success because of it. Plus Jason owns a home just down the street, and I'm sure Jereomy will be on the Lakes in the not too distant future.

Sara has to leave tomorrow for another business trip to California. I am fortunate that I'm going to be able to see changes daily over the next week. I have a feeling the changes Sara sees when she gets home at the end of the week will be dramatic (assuming no serious blizzards). I'm excited to get out to the lot during the day Saturday when she is back.

Here is a short video of them digging today. I'm going to post a second post tonight with some more photos:

Ground Breaking Tomorrow

I was at the TJB offices Friday Morning, and was told all of the permits are in order. In fact Sherie, who we will be coordinating a lot of our selections with was heading out to the city offices that morning to pick up all of the executed permits.

Sara and I are meeting the whole TJB team out at the lot tomorrow morning at 8:00am. It might be a little cheesy, but we're going to do a "ground breaking ceremony" of sorts. I doubt there will be a silver shovel, and it is unlikely that I'll get to spend too much time myself in the back-hoe, but nonetheless we're excited. With the freezing weekend we've had, it is a good thing we're getting going now. It sounds like they'll have the lot dug and the foundation poured in pretty short order. Everything else they can do without issue, even in the dead of Winter.

After the ground breaking, we're going to spend some time with Sherie at the lumber yard. The multitude of choices start tomorrow.

Looking forward to posting some pictures from the lot and lumber yard tomorrow.

Aspen Bay

For friends and family that don't know Blaine or don't know the development we're talking about, we figured it might be a good idea to give a little more perspective on where we are building this house of ours. First though, when we were there Sunday night and saw 10 deer roaming the back yard when we visited the lot with Jes, Adam and Jackson, Jes took a picture of Sara and I out among the stakes.



A few years back, when people were "building homes" and the real estate market was booming, a developer planned for a fairly large, multi-purpose development in Blaine.

This screen shot from our builder's Web site does a good job of defining where in Blaine the Lakes development exists.



The development itself consists of a series of neighborhoods connected with lakes, ponds and bays. We had a chance throughout the fall, and during the Parade of Homes, to tour the area and really get a sense of the entirety of the community. The development has a Senior Community, lots of Townhomes/Condos, retail, parks and trails, and some very cool pedestrian areas and beaches surrounding the lakes.

This is a good representation of the lakes and bays.





Within the larger plan is a series of neighborhoods around a chain of man made lakes.

Aspen Bay is a three phase development starting West to East. Most of the lots in Phase 1 are full. Many of the lots of Phase 2 have houses built. And part of Phase 3 (where we will be) is built up.

When we finally decided that Aspen Bay was where we would build, we had 5 or 6 lots in mind, all across the street from the lake. For a variety of reasons, we narrowed in on two lots. One was a "look out" which would have required us to adjust our "walk out" design. The other was on hold by another prospect who apparently got very serious about building about the exact same time we were coming to conclusions.

After much discussion, our TJB offered up a solution, which was a cul-de-sac lot that we really liked, but had dismissed because of the expense. It was a "look out" in Phase 3, that was everything we were looking for in a lot. Even with all of the leaves off in the woods behind the house, you'd hardly know there were houses through the woods. And even thought the lot is in the least developed Phase 3, all of the other lots in the cul-de-sac have homes (some of which are neighbors to be who we've met over the last few weeks). In fact since we signed our Purchase Agreement, even the Model Home just off the cul-de-sac now has a sold sign in the front yard.

This map is of the Aspen Bay portion of the development, with each of the three phases shown, and an arrow pointing towards our new lot. Interestingly, the tip of the arrow points almost exactly to where the 10 deer were Sunday evening when we were there with Jes and Adam.



The more we visit the neighborhood and the lot, the more excited we get. Sara has traded emails with TJB about some of the first decisions we're going to need to make in the next week or so. More on all of that later. We're just so excited to break ground on Monday the 7th. I'm sure a lot will happen between now and then, and we'll keep everyone posted.

Lots of deer

Tonight we went over to the lot to show our good friends Jes and Adam where we are building. We arrived around dusk which is about 4:30ish these days. We were absolutely delighted to see two groups of 5 deer each in our back yard. The builder was right when they told us we'll need to put up protection around our garden if we want it to last. How amazing though to have the deer right in our future back yard!

Another new development in our neighborhood as well. When you're looking at our house the house directly to the right of us was a model home (for a different builder). Chris and I walked thru the home a couple of weeks ago and it is beautiful inside. We were happy to see a sold sign out front tonight. So we'll have neighbors on both sides of us when we move in.

The Survey 2.0

Ok, yesterday was kind of desperate. I wanted to get out there the day when they staked out the yard, and even though it was dark and the pictures didn't turn out, I posted about it anyway.

I was able to get to our property earlier today, and even though it was cloudy and a little rainy, I was able to snap a few decent pictures.

Justin's crew (Justin is one of the TJB Family who is actually on site throughout the build managing the process) was out down the street on the lake side of the road constructing another one of our future neighbor's homes. It is fun to see our future neighborhood developing.

Here is what our property currently looks like as TJB pulls the necessary permits to start digging in just over a week.

The Survey

One of the disadvantages of starting to build in late November or early December is that it gets dark really early, which isn't very conducive to seeing progress unless you're there during the day.

Today was the day that they officially surveyed the land, and actually staked out the position of the house. I tried to get up to Blaine early enough to get a picture with at least some sun light. As you can see, I wasn't successful.

This may not mean as much to anyone happening to read this blog as it means to us, but this is what the property now looks like with the position of the house staked out and ready to go.

We'll have to get out in the daylight in the next few days to get a better snap shot of this. But as you can see, after surveying the land based on the positioning of the house we agreed to yesterday, they placed a series of stakes out in the yard in preparation for the big dig in a couple of weeks.

On the way out of the neighborhood, I passed by our mortgage guy's home and he and a neighbor across the street were out visiting. It was good to get a chance to say hi, and meet another friendly face in the neighborhood. So far, knock on wood, that's been a consistent theme, and it makes us more and more enthusiastic about this process.

Here we go!

Sara posted some great photos a few days ago of the property we were hoping to break ground on.

We've been extremely excited as we've worked through the design and the specifics of our house plan with our builder TJB. (www.tjbhomes.com). After considering a handful of different lots within the Aspen Bay development in the Lakes of Blaine, TJB came back to us and offered up the same house on the cul-de-sac lot you see in the photos from Sara's earlier post.

For us, it is really cool to be able to see the empty lot, the neighboring homes and be able to picture the home we've been designing situated right there on the land you see vacant.

Thursday night, we met with TJB to go through the edits we've made to the spec book, and discuss how the home would be situated on this particular lot.

At the end of that meeting, we signed a purchase agreement!!!

The lot Sara photographed is. . . ours!

We are very excited about the next steps, and the many decisions that are quickly coming. The first big decision was to decide exactly how the home will be situated on the lot. We rotated the house a little bit from where they initially positioned it to get a little better view of the lake across the street. We didn't rotate the home quite as much as we initially thought we were going to, but the end result is something the builder seems to like better than what they proposed to us initially.

By tomorrow afternoon, the lot will be fully staked out on the property, and TJB will be off to the races (racing, of course, methodically and with great care).

When we were there this evening we had the opportunity to meet (once again for Sara), the immediate next door neighbors. Along with them, a neighbor two houses further down was also there. First impressions are always important, and our first impression of the neighbors makes us enthusiastic about the people we will be living near starting later next year. They were very friendly, and seemed excited that the empty lot would soon be occupied by us. The next door neighbor coaches his young kids' hockey team, which is an added bonus.

This week will be permitting, surveying and other preliminary issues before they can start construction. I'm excited to post some pictures in the next couple days of the land staked out with the outline of our home.

Stay tuned. . .

Lakes of Aspen Bay Photos

We are hopefully moving forward tomorrow night with our last meeting with TJB Homes before we sign the purchase agreement. Tonight Chris and I spent the evening on the couch reading thru lots of pages of paperwork. I think we have our pricing sheet done, our spec book reviewed, and have done a preliminary review of the purchase agreement along with the two rental agreements for our existing properties.

I'm ready and excited to make it official. Since starting the evaluation process 5 months ago we've had a new house on the brain since then. We believe we are thoughtfully moving forward after having evaluated all of our options.

When Chris was away deer hunting I went to our lot to snap some pictures. I was still battling a nasty cold then so hadn't showered, was in comfy clothes, and was without make-up. I drove by our lot and our future neighbors were in their driveway with some friends so I kept driving. I was hoping that by the time I got back they would be inside so I wouldn't have to meet them when I wasn't ready to make a great first impression. Needless to say they were still outside when I drove back around. I decided to stop anyways and started to take pictures of the lot. Their dog Lucy came over to greet me almost right away along with two of their kids.

The boys were 7 and 4 and were very well behaved and curious. I told them that my husband and I were looking at the lot and were going to potentially be their neighbors. The first thing they wanted to know was if we had any kids. I told them that we didn't yet but we would hopefully some day. They went on to tell me all about the other wonderful kids in the neighbors. Eric, their dad, came over shortly thereafter to meet me. He was very, very kind and offered to help in anyway thru the building process. They also used the same builder and were very happy with their house.

Eric did mention that he coaches one of his son's hockey team along with one of the other dad's in the neighborhood. Chris was very excited to hear that!

Below are some pictures of the neighborhood, the lot, and the surrounding houses.

"Settled" in Blaine. .. . well almost

On Saturday, Sara and I hauled our stuff up from the Southern burbs and got settled into our temporary place in Blaine.

While we have stuff sitting all over the place and are still a ways from being actually organized, there was a certain peace of mind that comes from being just two miles from where we'll be settling into next Spring.

We are so excited to be able to document this process, share it with photographs.

We're hoping to sit down with TJB this week and finish rooting through the massive spec book to get many of the details just right. At that point, we're going to get settled on a plot of land with the hopes of breaking ground in the next few weeks (after permitting, of course).

We're without the Internet at home until Thursday, but we're going to try to get some photos posted of the area very soon.

In the meantime, lots of moving, stacking and unpacking of boxes.

The Move

It has been a hectic couple of weeks, but we are learning that the more our path changes, the more clear it becomes that the changing path we are on was a path set for us.

This weekend, we're uprooting from the Southern burbs, and settling into a temporary Townhome in Blaine. We drove back from Leech Lake Sunday after a surprise 60th Birthday party for my mom/40th anniversary party for my parents. The trip from Walker to Blaine was at least an hour shorter. We suspect the road to Wisconsin to see Sara's family will be a wash or shorter from where we currently are and look forward to the ability to see both more frequently once we get settled.

As Sara wrote earlier, we spent a significant amount of time during the Parade of Homes, searching for the type of house we wanted to live in and grow a family together. While we learned a lot about the style and look of the structure itself, what the time we spent really taught us was the kind of neighborhood we wanted to be in. And we ended up finding both.

We'd have never gotten to this point had it not been for delay after delay after delay with a plot of land in Apple Valley being repossessed by the bank from a builder that has ceased to exist in any real terms. More evidence in our minds of a path devined.

Once we are settled in, we'll be about 2 miles from where we intend to make home. We're excited later this weekend to take some pictures of the neighborhood and the prospective plots as we finalize which one we will soon call home.

In the meantime, we're boxing up our place and doing all of the "fun" stuff that you can't get around with a significant move.

Saturday is the big day. We're looking forward to being residents of Blaine sometime in the afternoon.

More soon. . .

The big decision

Chris and I are getting ready to make our big decision about building a home. We've spent the past four months doing research and are very close. We're looking at the Lakes development in Blaine. When we started this process in June I had no idea we'd end up where we are today.

You may ask how we ended up in the northern metro from the SE metro? After looking at 40+ homes in the parade of homes our thinking became more clear. We wanted to live in a neighborhood that was young with lots of young families but that was still close to the cities. Blaine seems to be the perfect fit to commute into both Minneapolis and St. Paul like Chris and I are both currently doing.

I will admit that I don't know that much about the northern metro but do know that living in Blaine will shave off at least an hour plus on Sunday nights in July on the way back from Leech Lake (where Chris parents live). We were not at the lake frequently this summer but know that will change next summer and the years ahead.

Once we have finalized a lot to build on we'll post pictures often of the progress. In the meantime enjoy reading about our journey to our new home.