I get this question alot. Where are you at on the house? Are you living there? haha. Is it done? What does it look like? so, here is where we are at....in the beginning literally, but we've come so far particularly if you compare this picture to the one in my first post.
The picture in this post is what the lot looks like now. You can actually walk it and not feel like you are in a jungle. Danny, his dad, my brother and Bobby have worked really hard clearing the lot and put in many hours of sweat equity and tree/brush clearing. I know my brother, affectionaly known as Doodle, will get payback from us...one way or another. But, don't feel too bad for them because all those hours of work equals lots of time to build really big fires and stoke them and watch them burn. And, does it really get any better for men than fire? Danny even burned some trash from our old house that was probably illegal to burn. I won't go into too much detail because it might upset some of our environmental friends, the tree huggers as Danny likes to call them. Although, we are republicans so we don't have many tree hugger friends, but you never know.
So, we are clearing the lot and Danny has been meeting with the architect for a few months to get the plans done so that we can get the construction loan. I finally met the architect in person before Christmas. He knew quite a bit about me...the fact that I'm a slob, still have trouble parking my SUV without hitting the side mirrors, and that I need a lot space in my pantry and closet (and that Danny and I could NOT share a closet or we'd end up in therapy and/or divorced) and that I demand a utility room that doubles as fancy dog room and a safe room because I'm a chicken. Nothing like meeting the professional who is designing your home and him saying "Yes, I've heard alot about you." with a knowing nod.
Well, he has done a fabulous job and the plans look really cool or at least I think they do because I suck at reading house plans. Danny assures me it will be cool and he is really good at this kind of stuff, so I trust him.
In the meantime, we have a moved into a very nice rent house while we build Dolce Vita. Danny originally tried to convince me that we could live in a trailer on the lot and save a LOT of money while building. I said: "Not just No but hell No". No way I was going to live in a tornado magnet on a hill in the front door of tornado alley with 2 kids and 2 dogs (all of whom are scared of storms). That would be a recipe for disaster for sure. So, we sit comfortably in our blue rent house (I call it the smurf house)and sit around and debate things like what kind of fireplace we want and if we really need two ovens. Thrilling conversations we have!
Our lease on the smurf house expires on December 18, 2010. That gives us 11 months to complete this project, but who is counting. Wait, I am.
