A Christmas Culvert?

Some people have been asking for an update. I'm sorry to say there hasn't been much progress, or at least "exciting" progress.
We did interview a final architect, that we really liked, so it came down to the first and last, and we chose the first, which we had also really liked. The difference came down to the costs (of building a totally custom home drawn from scratch vs using a pre-existing custom plan to which we will make changes). We have an appointment for our design session on Monday, so hopefully after Christmas we will be able to start sharing our floor plan with you.
In the meantime Alex has completed our culvert.  It was another one of those expenses that I really hadn't budgeted for. Thankfully it wasn't a big expense and as everyone always tells you, we had built a cushion into our budget for the unforeseen.
So, here's our culvert. Exciting, eh? Not really. But necessary.

Also, thought I'd share some non-house events/pix. As I had mentioned at the very beginning, while this house project will take up a ton of our time and energy, we weren't exactly bored to begin with. We are blessed with 2 young, very active, boys. The oldest is in Kindergarten and I've been working with another classroom mom to put on his parties. I didn't blog about the halloween party, which I was pretty proud of. But the holiday party went off yesterday, without a hitch. I just love seeing how excited the kids get over the themed crafts, snacks and games we bring. Since I also work full time, I can't be in the class as much as I would like, so this is the least I could do.

Santa's munchies cup (filled with goldfish & m&ms)

Melted snowman (water) to drink

Our first permit-driveway access

Permits, permits and more permits. That will be a running theme throughout this journey. As will the associated costs that comes with each and every person/group/step you have to do. Go figure, right?

Turns out you need all kinds of reviews/permits before you can even apply for your building permit.

So, for the first step of our "construction" a storm water review/permit must be obtained before you displace any land. There is a cost for this. However, all we intend to do at this time is clear some trees and brush so that we can gain access to our property vs parking at the neighbor's. By the way, that sounds nice, right? "our" property vs. "the" property...Anyway, I digress.
But I confirmed that we do not need the storm water review at this point, unless we plan on popping the stumps out, since that would be the action that displaces the land. Which we aren't doing, at this point anyway.
So, the next permit I checked into was a Road Access review/permit. There is a cost for this.
Since our future driveway will turn off onto a county road, the D.O.T. has to receive an application so they can come out and see where your property meets their road, the right of way and what you plan for your access (aka driveway). They then advise you if you need a culvert and how to construct it.

I also called the fire department that will serve us, to see if they would have any requirements for access. So there was that (they didn't really have any requirements by the way, but the Lt. did seem to enjoy telling me about all the pumpers that would fight our fire and how they would set up, etc since we will not have a hydrant-it was actually quite interesting). So, no costs...at this time. But we will need a letter stating they've reviewed our plans, once we have them, before we apply for the building permit, and there IS a cost for that (aka "impact fee"). I will also mention here that we will also need to go to the School District office and have them give a receipt for their impact fees once we have our houseplan. For those of you that haven't done this, it is based on the number of bedrooms in your plans.

Ok, now time for some cool pictures of our progress this past week.

Remember this one from Monday with Alex in our future driveway? He and I thought we had cleared so much brush..
















Well, here is how it looked this evening....
This is our driveway looking towards the main road.





We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week(end) but especially for the all the help.
Whether it was moving brush, working on the burn piles, running the chainsaw, climbing trees, pulling the rope, bringing lunch or helping with the kids, we really appreciate everyone who came out. We couldn't have done it without you. It's amazing really how much was accomplished with just 2 1/2 days work.


And one last picture for the evening, this is the view from the very back line of our property overlooking the former gravel pit (which is under reclamation). It's so pretty and peaceful, it's one of my favorite spots. Please click the picture to enlarge.

A Board Meeting and A Closing

While we were waiting for the date of the county board meeting to arrive, we notified our attorney that we indeed felt the variance would pass, based on the support of the hearing officer, so we hoped we could propose a closing date just after the official November 18th board meeting date. We had big plans for post closing to clear our driveway before the weather turns too cold and snowy to work (don't peek ahead at pictures below). We felt that if we waited for the Nov 18th date to then schedule the closing that our closing could possibly be pushed til after the holiday and given we have several days off for the long holiday weekend, we wanted to SURE we could close before the holiday.
After some coordination the closing date was set. And Nov 18th came and we headed to the County Board Meeting. We wanted to hear that YES vote first hand. And we did! It was actually pretty anti-climatic but none-the-less, another step to check off the list.
Today, Monday Nov 24th was our closing date.
It was nice to meet the seller and hear how the property had been in her family since 1976. Her father purchased it with the intent to build a home. Then life happened. Some years ago her sister was going to move back from CA and build a home on the lot and that also-obviously-did not happen. I got the feeling the seller was happy to know a nice family would be making it their forever home, or at least that's what I like to think. Realistically she was probably just happy to unload the damn thing!

Now normally at a closing it is exciting b/c you get the keys to your new home but again, an entirely different feel when you are now just the owners of a big piece of vacant land.
We were excited though, so we headed over to the property and for the first time took a chainsaw to some trees and starting to map our vision. The heavy work will be done in the coming days, but it felt really good to actually make some progress towards what will be our new homestead.
Here we are in the snow, our 5 acres of snow! And the last one shows our tree-lined (hopefully meandering) driveway.
So much for getting ahead of the coming winter weather.

Walkthrough?

Yes Jay, you heard me right, I want to do a walk-through before closing. (P.S. Jay is our realtor in case you didn't guess). Who does a walk-through of vacant land? What is there to see? However, being one for tradition or process or whatever you want to call it, I was determined.

Lewis and Clark, better known as Tom and Alex, were our leaders. Liam right behind and then Jay, then me (with James in the backpack). Weather a little soggy but a mild 50 degrees and no precipitation.
Stake to stake, we followed the survey and as we can tell you, nothing had changed since the last time there. Well, except that the property seems bigger somehow when you actually walk the entire perimeter, through the trees and brush, with no path and an almost 3 year old on your back.

The other thing we noted was that the property opens up faster that we originally thought, but that's because there are a lot more trees in the front portion that we first thought. This is good, trees are good. Of course, unless they are big junky trees (read Ash trees) that need to come down. But the house will hopefully be set a bit farther back on the property and the driveway will "meander". Don't you just love a meandering driveway!
Oh, and Liam found a baseball bat, so that was good too!

A special thanks to Jay, for humoring us.


Here is the frontage (remember it's "too short" and required the variance). You can see the pink flags marking where the driveway will be. Also, to the left you will see the for-sale sign; turns out it's not even posted in front of the actual property!

Architects are not all created equal

After the variance meeting we met with an architect which we were first introduced to at a home show. We were very impressed with him and the firm. We were there for a 2 hour consultation.  We walked away with a very formal, very detailed proposal of the scope of work. We walked away with a floor plan that we felt good about, only needing minimal changes. We slept on it.
We made another appointment for an architect that friends of ours used/recommended. One man show, working out of his home. Showed us several plans that looked nothing like we had outlined for him in our wish list. Told us his fees, promised to email them later. Never did. We were there for 15 minutes. We didn't even have to sleep on it. (Disclaimer here: our friends who recommended this architect went in with a plan that was essentially already drawn and their home turned out awesome, so this is not a comment on their recommendation, only that we did not find a love connection with him).
So...about those plans, here's just a sample of what we are thinking...
Farm/country style
2 story
3 bedrooms
2.5-3 bathrooms
Kitchen/Greatroom open concept
Mudroom
Office on main level
3 car garage

Like this

 Or this

or this

Writing this now, I can tell you we will be meeting with a 3rd architect, but I will provide you with an update on that later.

Waiting....A "vote" of confidence

So here we are, the contingency period for soil and buildability are over, and we follow up on the variance process. The sellers were supposed to have a meeting on Sept 9 with the hearing officer to get on the agenda for the board meeting. We asked our realtor to follow up the next day and we receive the response that the meeting was postponed to early Oct which means we are not likely to get on the agenda for the board meeting til end of Nov.
Sept 16th we have some free time so we (causally, ha, ha) stop by the property. We didn't contact the agents so we knock on the neighbor's door just to ask if he has any problem with us poking around again. Turns out ComEd has been by to mark some trees so the neighbor has lots to say. Still seems real friendly, like he'd be happy to have a neighbor.
Exciting news on Friday Sept 19th, we see the zoning sign posted at the property, with a hearing date of Oct 14th. We plan to take the day off so we can go to the meeting to see if anyone objects (we doubt it) and hear first hand that the variance has support from the hearing officer thus becoming virtually pre-approved for the board meeting. Hoping it will be a good day, as it will also be our 8th wedding anniversary!

By the way, this is NOT a stock photo, this is the actual sign from the property. We took a photo for keepsake.

In the meantime we crunch more numbers, and are pretty agreeable on a floor plan. We also attend a home/building show and get an appointment set with an architect for the afternoon after the hearing meeting.

Oct 14th comes and we head out to the county government building. As we walk into the conference we expect to see a few other people, as we've seen the agenda and there are a few other items are listed. However, we are a bit surprised the meeting is pretty full, turns out there's a cell phone tower item on the agenda. Unfortunately for those people, that item cannot be discussed as the petitioner did not meet all the criteria, there was an error in their newspaper posting. So exits about 20-25 people and left are us, the listing realtor and seller. And the 2 side neighbors, the one we've met and the other we have not. Now, I am kinda nervous they are there, b/c really why would they be there except to object to our variance. But why? Why would they object? The meeting starts and you are sworn in, if you planning on speaking on the record.
The listing realtor and seller state their request and reason. The reason being is the property has no value to them without the variance b/c the land is zoned residential but cannot obtain a residential building permit due to the shape not meeting the required frontage w/out the variance. It is reconfirmed by the hearing officer that the seller believes the intent is for a single residential family home. She then asks if there are any other parties that wish to speak and I stand. I state that we are potential purchasers and wish to have our support noted and to confirm that yes, we only intend to build a single family home. It seems there is some lingering concern over it becoming a multi-residential property (as the listing agent had previous plans for such). The neighbors express their concern about our future driveway and it's proximity to their properties. The hearing officer basically tells them they have no basis for their concerns, b/c while our driveway will be very skinny, it is still wind enough to meet the ordinance for the width of a 2-lane drive (we only plan on a single lane by the way). The hearing officer states her support and our case is closed. We are advised the case will come before the county board for final approval on November 18. We are one step closer to owning The Triple V!

Do we or don't we?

After leaving the farm property we pulled up the listings that our home realtor had sent us and drove past 3 or 4 of the listings we felt were in line with what we were looking for. With each listing we became more confident that the vacant farm land, and building a new house, was going to be the way to go.
We then headed home for another late night of internet searching and talking about our dream home.  Another couple of days looking at maps, looking at listings, looking at floorplans, looking at financing options, looking at costs and working on budgets.
Another couple of days of reaching out to folks at county and banks and getting our realtor on board to represent us (we thought about the listing agent being a dual agent but decided, based on recommendations, that it was best to have a separate agent) and of course, talking to family and asking Do we or Don't we? AND WE WERE FINALLY READY TO MAKE AN OFFER.

This was also about the same time we found out that though the land was zone residential it did not meet the county ordinance for frontage road for residential properties. Essentially with one of my calls to county the zoning representative looking at the lot via the PIN made mention that it seemed the frontage was not very wide. Which was true, b/c as you will recall the lot is flag shaped. He then says it needs to be 100' to meet the ordinance and we review the listing and GIS mapping and sure enough it's only 46'. He says that the ordinance can be overcome with a variance approval, which requires posting signage and having legal representation appeal the zoning board and then getting the votes from the county board in order to basically not meet the ordinance. Keeping in mind the time and cost associated with this and that we would never get a permit to build our residential home unless variance is approved.
Thus our offer including a contingency that the seller obtain the variance from the county, so when we are ready to build it's one less hurdle. Of course we were upset b/c we felt misled. Afterall they had listed the property as residential build to suit.  Had I not been badgering the folks at county about potential problems with the property we were looking to buy this issue never would have been realized until we were already the owners. This was a big sticking point b/c if the variance isn't approved then we would be stuck with the land, but never able to build our home on it.
Our contract also had a contingency for us (the buyer) to complete a soil septic suitability and building feasibility tests. That is, can we put a septic system on the land and can we get a home built with a standard spread footing foundation. We received a counter offer, which we further countered and were ACCEPTED. Date July 27th 2014. Our attorney modifications came in on 8/1 and on 8/25 we requested an extension for our side of the contingencies. The variance contingency has an expiration of Dec 31, 2014. We knew we were in for a long haul with the county.

How it all started, kinda.

Have to give a history lesson because one would think that 2 1/2 months later we should be further along in the process or not as far along, depending on how you look at it. But I'm starting this blog somewhere in the middle of the beginning. Soooo here's the background...
On Sun July 6th I had a playdate arranged so hubby decided to go for a motorcycle ride to get out of our hair. Upon his return he told me about some "nice properties" he had passed along the way.
Now here's the part where the "kinda" comes in. I don't want you all to think that a couple days later is all it took for us to find our dream property. The key here is "dream."  It's actually been for as long as we can remember that we have wanted more space. Not necessarily more house but some land of our own to play around on. Of course when we bought our current home that dream wasn't fulfilled. But we always kinda of knew we wouldn't stay here. Don't get me wrong we love this home. We started our married lives here, got our puppy, had our 2 boys and made many other memories. Realistically it also wasn't possible to even look for the first few years and then the financial crisis happened and then life happened.
So really I would say it's been in the last couple years we got more serious about moving. Friends of ours moved to the west side of town in fall last year and at that time we really took a hard look at our situation and what was on the market. We had some very serious talks about where the kids would be going to school,etc. (and yes it did seem crazy to think about high schools when our oldest wasn't even in kindergarten yet!)
But we made the decision to stay put. We completely renovated our master bath this past spring.

I also held hubby off in the hopes I would soon get a promotion/raise and we could begin his garage addition in spring 2015.
Flash back forward to July 6. What the heck? Why not take another look online to see what was out there and what hubby thought he might have seen. So I searched for properties in our county for 3+acres. And low and behold I found a 5 acre piece of land right on the other side of the river. Same distance to daycare, same school district, set back a nice distance from the road, a decent price. It was on unincorporated land and the listing was for a build to suit, single family residential home. We didn't feel we could afford the price including the build but in the fine print was noted that the land could be sold separately. We thought if we could afford the land now, that maybe we could build in the future. So 2 days later I received the email response with the listing price for the land alone.
Another 2 days later we had an appointment to view the property with the listing realtor.
In the meantime... we decided to go have a look on our own. We found what we thought was the driveway and went on in, however that was not the lot. So hubby ventured through the woods and knocked on a neighbor's door, who was kind enough to tell us to come park in his driveway so he could point us in the right direction. It was a summer evening and the mosquitos were in full effect. I was not dressed to trudge through the woods so hubby and son#1 went for it. Upon their return to our vehicle they said they saw what they thought must be the land. I would have to wait til 2 days to see it with the realtor.


In the meantime...I called the realtor who sold us our current home and set up an appointment for him to come look at our house to tell us what he could possibly list it for.
In the meantime...I called the county (since the land is on unincorporated county land) to ask about zoning and ordinances and building permits and etc.
In the meantime...I reached out to friends of ours who had just finished building their home last summer.
In the meantime...we reached out to our immediate family to get their thoughts.
And yes, if you think that's a lot of "in the meantimes", you are right. There was a lot going on those couple of days before we even saw the property.
Thursday morning came and our realtor came to see our home and gave us good news that our house could be listed for more than we thought. We told him we had an appointment to meet the listing realtor to visit some property and he wished us luck but also asked if he could send us some listings of properties, with homes, to view in the area. We agreed and thought it would be a good gauge of what we might get in either scenario.

Thursday afternoon we pulled into the neighbor's driveway, once again, this time meeting the realtor. I'm sure you got the gist by now, but to be very clear, there is NO driveway at the property. The realtor had been out the day before (the day b/w when we were there last and Thurs) and spent, he told us, 4 hours clearing a path out to the opening. Here's where I should tell and show you, the property, which is a "flaglot". Meaning it has a long skinny driveway (or what will become a driveway) which then opens up to the 5 acre property.
  
In this picture the property is the rectangle in the middle that is a different shade of green.

The property was extremely overgrown, which makes sense b/c according to my research the listing had been on and off since at least 2008 (the pic above is from 2012). At this point the realtor told us that the property was originally going to be subdivided into 4 lots, which he was going to do as a subdivision. But then the market turned and he could not invest anymore. He says the lot was a farmette that was inherited by children of parents who had retired south and they were eager to sell.
We walked on back and it was beautiful. A tree line driveway leading back to a field, the perimeter surrounded by tall trees, backing up to a gravel pit under reclamation. Secluded enough you don't "see" the neighbors, but drive on out and all the closeness of conveniences the same as we have it now. We walked to the back of the 5 acres, "met" the back neighbors (that story later) and then walked back to the car. The realtor was winded but we were invigorated and in love with the land.

Why am I here?

I'm thinking I should have started this back on July 6th when it all began but I will catch you up over the next several posts. This blog will initially cover our land purchase and new home construction process. I might intermingle some family tidbits because, well there's always something going on.
Oh and the name Triple "V" for the Voigts Vamily Varm. We'll tell ya how we came up with that too! Enjoy.