The Road Home, Eventually

This is the little bumpy road that leads to what we'll call, for now at least, 'The Funny Farm' (until we come up with a better name - 'Tara' didn't fit, so this was my second choice). The road is bumpy, rough, has holes, and won't be tons of fun on the road bike, but it leads us to what will eventually be our dream home. Our property is at the end, just before the woods on the left.

There are also a few nice surpises at it's end... like this one.

I think this will be my 'time out' place. Mike thinks it will be his too.

We've had quite a trying time the past few weeks. We decided last year that we would build a log home on this land. We've focused on the land a lot, and only recently got serious with the drawings we had in hand to edit and send to the log home manufacturer. We got the modifications made last week, and sent them in and requested a formal estimate. We received the estimate, which didn't surprise us too much, but, the list of things NOT included surprised us quite a bit. Seems like almost nothing but logs was included in the estimate. Long story short, our little cabin in the woods could end up costing us about $150 per square foot to build. Yikes, not exactly what we had in mind. We had in mind building a house that we could pay for in 15 years or less, then have the ability to travel and do all the fun things we like to do. So, this week Plan B has been taking shape. We're taking our same floor plan (pretty much) and building a farmhouse. After a day or two of sadness, we both feel very good about it now...we'll be able to upgrade some things we wouldn't have been able to if we'd stayed with the original plan, and hopefully have a paid-for farmhouse in 10-15 years and the ability to do all the fun things we enjoy doing so much. God was watching over us...we got the estimate at a very critical time, just in time to prevent us from moving forward with some things that would have affected us very negatively in light of this new information.

So, we are looking for a general contractor and architect, and plan to move forward as soon as possible with the new plan.

More to come.

Finished!

Floors that is. Christmas was quite interesting for us this year, as we were in the midst of the floor refinishing. On Christmas day we finally moved the bed from the living room where we had been sleeping for 1 and 1/2 weeks, back to our bedroom. It was unbelievable how good it felt to be back in our own bed in our own room.

Here's a look at what we uncovered when we pulled the carpet up...

The black and white spot wasn't there, that's my shadow, Ozzie...
The sanding took a few days, but we had plenty of help...

We think the results were definitely worth the effort (we think that now...that's it's over).

We are very close to putting the house on the market, I'm calling the realtor this week to talk about details. In the meantime we have to find a rental house near our property to live in while we build. It's getting exciting, and scary. Very scary.