We had spent much of February hashing out the final design of the house. It was based off of one of their designs, the Westwood 4, but had been modified so heavily it was unrecognizable from how it had started out. With the design finally settled in early March just before closing, it was time to get to work.
So, first order of business was to hire some subcontractors to do the work. We got a list of subs from Eric, our materials coordinator at President, and started e-mailing. The bids rolled in quickly. We were pleased to find that for the most part we were able to get bids slightly under the budget that President had written.
Second order of business was to get a plat of survey. A surveyor goes out and draws exactly where on the lot the house will sit and elevations all around. This is necessary for the building permit, the excavator and the foundation contractor. We didn't have a surveyor. Paul picked up the Yellow Pages and made a call. The first place that picked up the phone only handled surveying for large projects, but he did have a recommendation for a company that would take on projects our size. So we called Edgewood Engineering out of Big Bend, and they were happy to help us out. They went out and did the work, and a couple days later we got ten copies of the plat of survey and a reasonable bill. Good start.
Next, we applied for the building permit. This is a 3-week process. We gathered up the survey and house plan, filled out the forms, took them to City Hall and waited impatiently. A week later Kathy got a phone call stating there was an issue - the grading plan called for the east side of the house to be cut two feet lower than the west side, but the house plan didn't account for this. So we had to call the surveyor back and ask them to fix the grading plan. This they did without any trouble.
In the interim we started to hire subcontractors. First we hired Travis Brothers to do the excavation, the same people who lowered the lot. Titan Construction was retained for framing, and Midwest Plumbing for plumbing and HVAC. We didn't have an electrical bid we liked, and no foundation contractor had ever gotten back to us. This wasn't too good, we needed them soon.
On April 6 we got the call - our building permit was ready!
Also ready was a bill for $3000 worth of permit and impact fees. Yikes. Good thing we had money saved up for just such contingencies......
Still, how exciting. We bought a board and some stakes and made our sign post.
Check the first picture. It had taken so long to get to this point, the city changed the street signs. :) The next two are the last photos of this plot before it became a construction site.
