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Does He Approve?

We spent another weekend burning weeds.

Sinjhin finally got to take a trip up to his new property.



" If I had only known, I would have drank a couple more bowls of water this morning!"




"I helped with Dinner, of course I took initiative to eat first. I didn't understand why someone would put a hotdog on a stick, when it tastes just fine straight from the bag. I made sure my tongue didn't touch anyone else's but my own"












This impromptu Hot dog roast, didn't allow us to aquire proper tools. The fire was way to hot to get that close to it. Our gloves were melting. Luckily our ingenuity kicked in to to save dinner.

"Just plain tuckered after my first tour of the property. I'm not sure about my new property. That hour and a half was the most excitement all year. It will take me a week to recover. Good news though, in my old age, I am still as good as I once was. I baled four feet out of the jeep window and hurded 6 deer over a 6 foot fence in .08 seconds flat. I will definetely being feeling that in the morning."

I can see it from the Highway!

Here are some pictures of the framing. When we were driving up to see the house one afternoon we were joking that the increased height would be tall enough to see from the highway. Well, as we turned off highway 97, we were looking up the hill and because the plywood stands out among the green of the hillside, we could see it clearly. This is all before the trusses go up, so it will be even taller once it's finished. Since it is going to be visible from so far, I will be investing in some christmas lights and other decorations that will make "Clark W. Griswold" green with envy. (for those who don't remember, "Clark Griswold" is from the movie "Christmas Vacation.")
















North side of home as you drive up the driveway.



















West side of the house. Standing on the circle driveway. You can start to see the bonuse room taking shape
above the garage.

Northwest corner of the house. This will be the porch, and part of the circle driveway.

Hammers, and nails, and walls, OH My!

At 5'5'' I can barely touch the floor!

Here is a side by side to put the height into prospective. Just keep in mind I am 5'5'' (with boots on).

Firm Foundation

It's starting to take on a whole new shape! There are now 9 steps in the foundation. Don't ask us how to count them. We just know that they are there! If you have a choice, I would highly recommend you purchase a level lot.

What a haul!

We spent last weekend hauling 18 cubic yards of garbage from the property, dump fees ran $150.00 + trailer rental $40. After mentioning the work that needed to be done on the property, this was the first weekend in 4 weeks that we haven't had company. Not sure how that happened.

No, the trailer shown in the pics is not the trailer we rented. We own this lovely little thing.

Yes, that is the back of the trusty old jeep. If we hadn't bought that trailer for $50 a couple of years ago, I'm sure we would have found a way to tie those oil tanks to the top. That $50 was money well spent.

You should have seen the looks we got pulling this downtown Redmond on a Monday afternoon. Our foundation contractors were shaking their heads as we pulled out of the driveway. Where there is a will (and a Kelly) there is a way!

When purchasing our bare land, we didn't expect two empty old oil tanks to be thrown in for free. Luckily they were steel, and people like to take steel off your hands for free.

These wonderful freebies were found buried under a juniper tree, that had to be taken out for our driveway.

How would you spend $1000?

Normally we could get 4 months of gas, 5 months of groceries, go watch 50 movies in theater and have enough for popcorn & candy, 1000 chances at powerball, 2000 butterfingers, 200 lattes, a lifetime supply of treats for Sinjhin, or 1 fun day of clothes shopping.

But this month, we got a hollowed out concrete box for $1000. (Now that takes Discipline)

The power company will be putting a underground transformer inside it.

Permits Are In

Permits came in on 09/25/07. Only a week and a half later than expected. Thanks to our general (Ken) being on top of the engineering, he caught a problem with the flooring and resolved it before the plans were kicked back out. We were very thankful we didn't have to start over with it.

With all of the extra engineering that went into this house, our house in indestructible.

Bring on the Hurricanes, Heavy Snow, Tsunami's, & Tornado's; but not the Bill to pay for all the extra Lumber and Concrete.

Bringing In the Big Gun's

Rocks, Rocks, & More Rocks

The Excavator had to dig the utility lines 430 feet to the homesite,

this was what he say 3/4 of the way.

The Home Site will have 6 steps in the foundation,
you can see them if you look close.

First Look!

View of Powell Butte area from what will be the Master bed/bath windows.

View of Redmond from what will be the Great Room and Dining room windows.

View of Smith Rock from what will be the office and great room windows. This is on a hazy day so you can barely see smith rock in the background.

We will be building a second story great room above the garage. This will provide views of Bend from Kelly’s craft room and the Bonus room. These pictures do not do the views justice at this time as the floor level will be higher than we are right now.
Still waiting for permits to come in. Excavator is laying conduit today and finishing prep for the homesite so the concrete workers can get up there and start setting forms. Hopefully posts will be more frequent after the excavation is done. Things don’t appear much different day to day at this point because they have had to hammer so much rock.
Thanks to all the blogstalkers for checking in regularly, we will try to keep up with demand...

Highly Deserved Pizza & Beer...

After....

5 years of searching,

4 months of financing

3 mortgage lenders

2 much frustration

and 1 piece of land later....






Pizza and Beer on "our" little piece of dirt. (Priceless)



We couldn't have picked a worse month to close on a construction loan. We started with West Cost Bank, they pulled there LTV Construction loans a week before we were ready to close. The second loan company called the day we were to sign closing docs, and said they were pulling out of construction loans all together due to the number of Loan Companies going out of business. Its hard to believe a loan company can commit to funds then back out at anytime. Finally we locked in, signed docs, and funded with an Oregon based bank before the mortgage market got any tighter with construction loans.