Making Progress

I don't have any pictures this time . . . but, I wanted to fill you in on the progress we've been making. This past weekend, we used a laser level to determine the site elevation at different points. We will use this to decide how much dirt we need to order, to get the foundation to the right height and the yard graded.

Adam also set the truss designer, structural engineer, and geotechnical engineer (soil testing) loose to start their work. We should have their designs/tests soon and will then submit for permit with the county. This will probably still be another couple weeks.

Yesterday, Adam, Austin (Adam's assistant at work), and I started on the batter boards. I'll try and get a picture of that up soon. They are basically wooden boards that go outside the corners of the house. We will then tie stringline at the correct positions that will correspond to the outside perimeter of the house. We put up about 75% of the boards, but have not run the string yet.

That's about everything. Adam will be at a men's retreat with church this weekend, so I don't know how much work will get done in the upcoming days. As always, I'll try to keep this site up to date and will try and get a picture up soon of our latest feat.

Laying out the Corners

Adam and I layed out all the outside corners of our house last weekend.


Adam borrowed some survey equipment from a coworker, we marked all the distances and angles on the plans, and then we marked all the corners with stakes. So, I guess that means we officially broke ground. We didn't have a golden shovel - but, I'll work on getting a golden spoon or something.

We are still waiting on a few things before we can submit for permit - it's looking like it will be a few more weeks before everything is ready. In the mean time, I think we're going to order some dirt and get the site prepared. We are on our way!

Checklist for Building Permit

We are currently gathering all the information we need to submit for permit with the county. This is an important step, because it means we will be able to begin construction of our house. We are not allowed to do any work without a permit. There is a fair bit of paper work we need to submit to be approved for our permit. I have posted a checklist (3 pages long) that Duval county gave us. We are using this to make sure we have everything we need to submit and have the greatest chance of being approved the first go round. You can click on the images to see what our county requires. I know it doesn't seem like much is happening right now, but all of this needs to happen in order to start building and see progress. Once we submit, it shouldn't take any longer than one week to hear back from them. Supposedly, Duval county is one of the more difficult counties to work with, I hope we don't have any problems with them. We hope to submit for permit very soon - hopefully by next week. I will keep you posted on our progress and will have pictures once we break ground.

Floor Plans

This is the home we are going to build. It should look just like this, except the garage will be front facing on the left side of the house.


This is the first floor plan. It has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. I'm in love with the layout - we found and ordered the plans on www.architecturaldesigns.com.


This is the second floor. We're going to leave the upstairs as storage for now. In the future, we'll build it out to be an extra bedroom, gameroom, whatever. We know it's huge. But, I figured we're going to save money building it ourselves, so we should make it bigger, right? Well, it'll be great once it's done. Hopefully we can afford to live in it.

We own land!

We closed yesterday (there was some rescheduling) . . .after spending 1 1/2 hours signing paperwork and trying to figure out some of the documents. Apparently, an Owner/Builder getting a Construction Loan is a pretty rare thing. Everyone was fairly confused with the paperwork. But, we got it straitened out and we now officially own land.

We would of loved to do something to it before Christmas . . . but that just isn't going to happen. We will be back from our vacation to Utah and Natasha's wedding in Tallahassee the second week of January. We will also be submitting for permit then. There's still a lot to do, but I feel like we accomplished a lot. Just getting the loan figured out and approved was a task in itself (well, Adam did most of the work . . . but, it was a huge headache for him). We also selected plumbing fixtures yesterday. So far, we're fairly quick with decision making. I hope that's a good sign for things to come. There is a lot of decisions in our near future.

Anyway, there won't be much on this blog till the second week of January. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

We Close Tomorrow!

We are set to close on the land and construction loan tomorrow, December 19th at 3:00 pm. This will make the land officially ours and we will be able to start working on it!! There's not too much time to work on it before Christmas and our vacation, but we might do a little something. Adam's anxious to mark out the four corners of the house and put the batter boards up (outlines the perimeter of the house). We are also going to a showroom on Thursday to pick out plumbing fixtures. Things are coming together . . . :) YAY!

Our Land

After searching for land the entire year of 2007, we have found the one! You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find something near our church that you can build on yourself. Almost everything Adam and I found was already owned by a builder or in an undesirable location. But, we managed to find a lot in a neighborhood, that is already cleared and has utilities run, less than five minutes from our church! We tried to make a bid on it back in August, but we were told it was already sold. God had other plans . . . two months later, the "for sale" sign was still out and when we called, we discovered the previous buyers fell through. We jumped on it and we should be closing this week on our construction loan. We already have the architectural plans and are currently completing the engineering design (I'm designing the HVAC). We should be submitting for permit before the end of the year. Adam wants to start moving dirt as soon as we can.

It has been a dream of ours to build our own home. Not only do we get to custom design our house, but we're using our talents to do it ourselves and save money. We're excited, but not really sure what we're getting ourselves into. This blog will show the progress of our house and our lives as we build our home together. Enjoy.