SylvanTrails New Home

We have finally received enough estimates to have a good idea of what the house is going to cost to build. Now we are waiting to hear from a realtor about what both of the properties are currently worth. Once we get that information we can have a better idea of how much loans are going to be and whether we can afford it this year or if we are going to have to wait.

Oh, and hubby had some more fun with the floor plans, trying to make the kitchen more “efficient”, and possibly adding a built in front porch. They didn’t work as well and I think we’re mostly back to the flipped floor plan, with maybe some minor tweaks.

We are slowly starting to discuss interior decoration. I am bringing it up now because, since we are getting a brand new house, we can get the fixtures and stuff to “go” with the decoration, instead of working the decoration to “go” with the interior. Hubby’s comment was that, if we like the decoration as it is now, why change…so, I think we are mostly going with what we have in our current house, with some minor modifications.

Well, we’re in a holding pattern right now.  We sent out estimate requests to several builders, modular and otherwise.  We also actually went and visited another modular company, and they are working up a quote for our floor plan.

The new company had some interesting things to say about some of the other companies…they seemed knowledgable about different aspects of the modular industry.  But, how much of what they had to say about the other companies was real and how much was them trying to make the sale to us…we’ll see.  In their favor, their company *does* install tankless water heaters.

Their modulars do present a small problem.  Because of the way they are built, they can only go 68′ long.  Our floor plan calls for 74′ modules.  They do make up for the 68′ by going to 16′ wide modules…but, playing around with the floor plan…it gets pretty wonky.  We’ll see what happens.

So, while we are waiting to figure out which company to go with, we’re doing “normal” stuff, cleaning house, playing with the kids, working on hobbies, etc.  And trying to NOT go crazy waiting.  I don’t know about anyone else in my family, but I want to know when/how/if this is going to happen…and SOOON!

Hubby finds a trial version of SmartDraw and sets out to generate our dream floor-plan. He takes all of the elements we like and puts them into a house we can use.

This is what he finally came up with:

Final Floor Plan, Furnished

I put the one up with furniture roughly laid out, so you can get an idea of which room is which.  The one that is next to the Master Bedroom is the craft room.  We’ve also got a huge pantry right off the kitchen, and a huge coat closet in the front, right next to the front door.  The boys’ bathroom is a tad larger than most…hubby liked the idea of them having breathing room when they get to be adults.  Our plan is to have a couple of tank-less water-heaters, one at each end of the house.

That is what he came up with a couple of weeks ago.  It was a pretty good set-up.

I had one reservation with it, though.  The way  it is currently set-up, you have to cross right in front of the TV to get to the stairs to go upstairs.  With two rambunctious boys, I could just see one of them running by on their way up the stairs, and accidentally hitting the TV and knocking it down.  And, just the going in front of the TV any time you wanted to go upstairs…yeah, that could get old after a while.

So, I got to thinking, how could it be re-done so that it would work?  If you simply moved the stairs to the fron, it wouldn’t work because of how long the stairs have to be.  So, after thinking a little more, I suggested completely flipping the Master Suite.  So the Master Bedroom is next to the Dining Room, and the Craft Room/Office is right off the Living Room.  It means that the coat closet gets stuck under the stairs and shrunk and there aren’t any closets along the wall between the living room and the craft room (because of where the TV goes. However, the Craft Room is a bit bigger, since the space from the closets goes in there.

So, here is the Final Floor Plan, Flipped:

Final Floor Plan, Flipped

Because of the roof we want on the house, there will be plenty of space upstairs:

Second Floor

Ultimately,  the second floor will have an exercise area at one end and the other end will have the library and general storage.  There are plans for 3 dormer windows, so that more natural light can get in.  Hubby also has plans to put a winch out one of the windows, so you can haul stuff up that way, but I’m not sure how that is going to work…we’ll see.

Hubby has sent the un-flipped floor-plans to several builders.  We’ve got pricing from two, but are waiting to see if we can get some additional pricing, just to see what our options are.  Once we get that information and once we get an idea of the actual values of our properties, we can proceed from there.

My grandmother died on Christmas Eve 2006. She was a big part of all of our lives. Even when things were difficult for my brother and me because of…life… she was there. She took us places on vacations. She gave me my love for reading and for Science Fiction. She provided the nest egg that helped us buy the house we are in now, purchased our bed, the dining room table, and the futon that my older son is now using for his bed. Her legacy has left us enough to help with the new house. She did a LOT for the whole family.

When she died, she was cremated. She had wanted to be donated to science, but because of how she died there was too much infection for them to be able to deal with it.

The original plan for her ashes was to purchase a spot at the columbarium at our church. However, here it is, a year and a half later and it hasn’t happened. My mother just isn’t ready to let her go that way. (She’s currently staying in our pastor’s office, holding long, interesting conversations with John Wesley. )

All of that is background to:

Hubby and I have been staying up *way* too late this week, no particular reasons, it’s just happening. The other night, as I’m up past midnight, finally in bed, and trying to get to sleep, I was kept up longer with a fit of inspiration.

There is a climbing rose that she liked (I can’t remember the name of it, but Mother has two of them in her front yard). There is another rose she liked, and I’ll talk to Mother to see about non-rose plants she liked. Anyway, it popped into my head…build her a specific section in the garden that I’m already mentally planning.

I don’t know exactly what it will look like. I know it will have the roses (and, therefore, a climbing trellis). I know that I would like to ask a friend who creates slate art work to do something for her. Beyond that…I don’t know. Maybe a fountain (if so, it will have to have dragons), maybe a reading bench, maybe a bird feeder…maybe a combination of the above.

I do know what I want the marker for the area to say. I want it to have her name, her birth and death dates, and to say “Thank you for everything”.