House Plans

These images are not what I would have hoped to upload onto this site and I will try to do better. But for now, if you click on the photos, you will be able to see what our exterior and interior will look like.
This is a photo of the the elevations from all sides.

Front elevation.

First floor.

Second floor.

Loose Loose Ends

Excavators and Frank trying to understand the electrical installation madness! For the record, Frank is NOT the guy with the beard. That's Todd, the excavator, and we love him dearly!

Todd and Carl, the excavators, listen intently as Frank (flailing arms) makes his point.

Loose Ends

It's always the nudgy stuff that'll getcha.

No different with this project.

We're trying to tie up the loose ends before we can present our "package" to the bank.

We still need quotes for painting, a flight of stairs, deck railings, and for electrical and telephone connections.

I called the Town of Stonington this morning and learned that our plans have not yet been reviewed. This is frustrating, to say the least, since we don't even know what our building permit will come to and the bank needs this information as well.

I spoke with the lender this morning and she says that if we are willing to cover the costs of these "loose ends" ourselves, she'll accept our package and get this ball rolling.

That's what we intend to do.

So tomorrow morning, I'm dropping the package off and keeping my fingers crossed.

I won't exhale until we've broken ground.

With any luck, we'll be good to go by April 16.

No better way to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

Let There Be Light

We drove out to the lot this afternoon to get a look at how everything turned out after the trees had been cleared. Heavy snow kept us away, but today we had a sixty-degree thermostat reading and an hour to kill.

I was so afraid that we wouldn't have enough sunlight with all the trees around, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that this won't be the case. There is plenty of light, at least with all the leaves off the trees, and the clearing wasn't as big as I feared it would be.

From every window (there will be thirty-one windows), we will have views of trees that go on forever. That's all we wanted to see: habitat for wildlife.

I am directionally challenged, but Frank was able to "place" me in the living room and dining room. We got a sense of where the two water gardens and perennial garden will go, and we're thinking that 10,000 bulbs over the septic system area would be better than grass.

I don't know if Elias would appreciate that.

I'm sure he would prefer a lawn.

With a kiddie pool and sandbox.

Over One Hurdle

The Zoning Department called me on Tuesday to tell me that our zoning permit had been issued.

Frank and I went to Town Hall this morning and filed the application with the Building Department. No telling when we'll get the go-ahead since they're seriously understaffed. With any luck, it won't be more than two weeks.

In the meantime, we're still tying up loose ends so that we can present our package to the Bank.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll be able to break ground mid-April.

The House

In October of 2007, I had mentioned to Frank that I would like very much to build a post-and-beam farmhouse with a wraparound porch.

Frank, being the generous soul that he is, began researching the post-and-beam house. He scoured, read, asked, and probed and found a set of plans that suited me just fine.

I like to look at ONE set of plans and give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I have neither the patience nor the desire to scour, read, ask, or probe on these matters.

Having settled on a set of plans, and really believing that someday we would build such a house in southeastern Connecticut, Frank began to google his way through the Internet and came upon ONE set of plans that turned his head.

He forwarded me a copy and my head was also turned.

Clearly, we were bagging the post-and-beam for the contemporary.

We sat with these plans for months and months, studied them, lived with them, walked through them.

It was our house.

We found an architect in the area, Michael Sullo, who specializes in contemporary homes and he made a few minor adjustments to better suit our needs and to make the house "livable" in our climate. (The original house was basically a glass house.)

It took us two full months to get the final drawings and endless meetings, phone calls, and e-mails.

We're very happy with the end result.

Thank you, Dr. Mike!

Zoning

I dropped the plans off at Town of Stonington this morning for zoning approval.

Word has it that Joe Larkin, the man with the pen, will be going on vacation soon.

With any luck, he'll get to our plans before he boards his plane.

No one at Town Hall would comment either way.

So now we wait.

And wait.

And wait.