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08
Mar

Ready To Build!

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Building Permit from Hanover County

All nice and legal!

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29
Nov

Catching up

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This is sort of a recap of what has been going on since the start of October.

The budget for the build has been presented to us by the last standing builder, and it turned out to be very reasonable. We’re happy to announce that David Ziletti of The Sycamore Building Company will be building the house. David has the added advantage of being able to tap into the vast expertise of Dick McDaniel a long-time area builder and redeveloper (who also happens to be David’s father-in-law).

The weather here has been lousy for starting a house build. That is to say, it has been raining big-time. The lot clearing had to be postponed; the date of this task remains under a rain delay.

Notwithstanding our latest plan changes, the plans are working their way through the various approval processes in the building permit office of Hanover County.

The building pad has been prepped to the point of where we know where the footprint of the house will lie. The drainfield has been identified, and the septic and well systems applications are also winding their way through the County’s approval process.

Working with Hanover County, as well as with the local power company, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative has been effortless.

We’ve been more stringent with one aspect of the plan design – the front entrance façade.

As originally drawn (PDF) it would have functioned well, but function is not all we were after.

We felt the design departed somewhat from the straight lines of the rest of the house. It took about a month of on-and-off discussion to reach the final agreement that we would not be happy if we were to proceed as planned. Knowing any changes at this point would have a minimal impact on the build, we decided to go with our hearts and commission the changes. Hopefully, the bottom-line won’t be stretched out of proportion to what it was originally.

A few of the fun items have been settled. Wood floors were purchased from The Floor Traders on Hull Street Road in Midlothian. They offered a great price for Brazilian Cherry.

The Sears Warehouse was the source of our washer and dryer (LG steam), our dishwasher (Kenmore Elite) and built-in microwave and convection oven (KitchenAid).

We also found tile for the bathrooms at Morris Tile.

We’re hoping mid-December will find some heavy equipment out at the lot, busily at work. Stay tuned.

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29
Nov

Updated front elevation

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We tinkered with the design of the front entrance. The original version did not look like it fit in with the modern design we wanted.

The overhangs on the main and mud-room entrances have also gone from being more integrated with the roof line to being simple, shed-like overhangs.

New Front Entry Roof Line

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11
Oct

House Plans ala Mark Jones

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Mark Jones, a talented designer and engineer, developed this set of plans for the house.

The next step is to review the bids from the builders.

Note – we received one bid that was so inflated that no bank, even during the height of the housing bubble, would appraise it for that amount. Hopefully, that was an anomaly and not a sign of bids to come.

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05
Jul

Alternative to flat roof

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Potential problems down the road with a flat roof led us to consider an alternative. The following are concepts drawn by SunStyles.net.


Front elevation.


Rear elevation.

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18
Jun

Why are architects so expensive?

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We know they do valuable work, but why charge 10+ percent of the building cost?

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11
Jun

Plans Drawn By Laura

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The house we will attempt to build was designed by Laura and me based on a conglomeration of houses we’ve seen in magazines and Web sites. It is a simple floor plan which suits us well.


Front elevation – carport will be in front of the right portion of house.


Rear elevation – looks out over the woods and pond.


East elevation – master suite.


West elevation – guest suite.


See the Floor Plan – It’s an Adobe PDF file.

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