So while I'm doing a relatively small bathroom remodel, my parents have FINALLY broken ground on their new home.
I say FINALLY because its a project that is several years in the making.
Im sure Ive mentioned it here before...but the land they have was originally my step great grandparents. When they passed, they divided it among their three girls..who all built houses there. One great aunt moved away, leaving her house as a rental property for years. Another was in her 80s and moved out to stay with family as her health failed. My stepgrandmother remains..with two houses on her property--a small cottage that they built when they were first married, and higher up the hill, the house she has called home for the past 45 years.
Long story short, Dad and stepmom bought back the two aunts houses, along with some other property that adjoins them. The two houses were beyond keeping...so they had to be torn down.
Well..there were air quality issues because the houses were so old there was fear of asbestos.
Those issues were dealt with...and the houses very slowly came down. (Very slowly because dad for some reason thought it made more sense to do as much as possible himself rather than offer some redneck a couple hundred bucks and a case of Bud to just knock the dang things down)
While the houses were coming down, I started designing the new houses. (Houses, plural, because where my grandparents original cottage stands will one day be a little one-bedroom cottage for me...other property is set aside for my brothers to do the same once they are old and decrepit like I am)
Mine was easy...I did it in one weekend.
Theirs...not so much.
The criteria were that the new house need not be any bigger than their current one. Except it needed more closet space. And a bigger bathrooms. And a bigger dining room. And a potting room. And a larger sunroom. You get the idea...keep it the same size, but add more rooms, and make the rest bigger. They soon realized the new house was going to be at least 800 square feet than they originally thought.
Then dad decided he needed a four car garage. (the house sits oddly on the steep property...allowing the garages to be UNDER the house--and Dad has set in his mind that there will be a two car on each side). Fine, except the site is so difficult there is only one place that the house can sit, and there is no way possible to get a driveway to the garage on the left side.
So dad decides to buy some more land so he can cut a driveway to the left in. That slowed things down.
Meanwhile, stepmom and dad NEVER spoke to each other about the house. Design one was sent off to them. Dad calls me..."looks great, lets cut some square footage out of the sunroom, and add a door here out to the patio" Wow, that was easy.
next day, stepmom calls. "Did you dad talk to you about the house?"
"Yep, he said make the sunroom smaller and add a door"
"Uh! I dont think so! I want the sunroom to be four feet bigger in each direction because I measured the one we have now, and it would be so much nicer if I could put the sofa on the short wall. And I know I told you I wanted the bedrooms on the back of the house and the kitchen on the front, but I changed my mind. can you just flip it?"
So I started over.
Design two, luckily, was approved almost immediately.
Then came time to have the driveways and the basement cut in. Six excavators were called in. Only one thought he was up to the challenge, and he couldnt do it until this summer. The seventh one was the charm...so permits were applied for.
Apparently, the drainage culvert that ran beneath the original driveway had been, 80 years ago when the original house was built, a stream. A stream that the Army Corp considered to be "navigable waters" (Bear in mind, this is an underground culvert that I never even realized was there). So more permits had to be gotten...with state and federal agencies needing to give their blessings.
Long story short, all the permits for the driveway and site work are in place...and the driveway is in now. Another two days and the pad for the house should be done.
I guess I dont have any site pictures...but here is the big house:
(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k199/Gryphon_photo/house.jpg)
and here's my little cabin on the other side of the property...
(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k199/Gryphon_photo/cabin.jpg)
Cool, I want to see the other elevations and the floor plans.
That is funny about the stream - not funny for you, but funny that it was there and not really there. I like both places. The cottage looks cool.
Moon, Ill try to get some floorplans up this weekend.
In the meantime, heres progress at the site...
(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k199/Gryphon_photo/MomsView.jpg)
(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k199/Gryphon_photo/SiteView1.jpg)
What a nice site! That's going to be beautiful in the summer and fall.
Yeah, I dont think they appreciated how nice it was until the other houses were torn down...
Does their land go all the way back? It reminds me of where I grew up...just that view. We had woods like that behind our house, but they went back for miles. I loved playing in the woods and even looking at this picture...I think the first thing I'd do is go exploring. :yes:
Quote from: PIYA on April 04, 2008, 03:22:16 PM
Does their land go all the way back? It reminds me of where I grew up...just that view. We had woods like that behind our house, but they went back for miles. I loved playing in the woods and even looking at this picture...I think the first thing I'd do is go exploring. :yes:
I think its like 14 acres in total...it goes all the way to the ridge of that hill, about 200 feet to the left of the large picture, and to just off the screen on the right...plus theres more across from the site...where the photo was taken from...and a small parcel that barely touches the rest that I think they just bought because someone was practically giving it away.