Category: Texas house Page 1 of 4

I cannot believe that we have been here two and a half months and still no concrete has been poured for the new house. The latest is that the hole that was dug for the wine cellar is still to wet to pour the concrete. We are hoping it will be dry enough by Monday to get started.

We were expecting a lot of rain over the last few days and got a bunch, but not nearly as much as expected. We are hoping our builder will be able to start build forms to poor the cellar and the foundation on Monday, but we will have to wait and see how much more rain accumulates in the hole they dug for the cellar. Actually, it was a tad bit lower today than yesterday, so we are optimistic.

The concrete people and/or our builder Brad flattened out the back of the lot, dug the basement a couple of feet deeper, and made room to start digging an prepare to lot for the foundation forms. In the process of that, they found (or broke) the old sewer line that was on the property. City sewer workers were there when we drove by. They explained that they were planning to rework the sewer lines anyway, but had hoped to use some of the old line. They will have to dig a channel across the street in front of us and put in a new line to make it right.

Lorena just took this picture of the excavator digging the wine cellar in our new house. We are very excited to see the project finally in progress!!! It is a day to celebrate!!!

The new house build here in Texas is on the verge of beginning in earnest. Brad has another big project that kicked off this week that is keeping him busy while we finish up the permitting from the city and he continues to negotiate scheduling and pricing with subcontractors. In the meantime, I have been working around the edges of some cost reduction. We were able to find some plumbing fixtures we liked a lot better than what Brad’s regular supplier had available. They are of good quality and the price is a good bit lower, too, so we have made arrangements for Brad to buy them at another place with his contractor discount. I am in the middle of doing the same thing with the appliances we want and have found some significant cost reductions there, too.

Our builder has suppliers with whom he works to provide flooring, plumbing fixtures, drawer and cupboard pulls, etc., etc. These suppliers also provide logistic support in case a kit has a missing or damaged part, to assure parts arrive on the contractor’s schedule and to deal with whatever issue comes up. That has value and is worth some extra cost. That being said, when we met with the plumbing fixture supplier, the design choices he gave us were no where close to what we really wanted. When Lorena and I got home after the meeting, I looked up what we had purchased for our house in Centralia, Washington that we really loved, we found that a package would replaced most or all of what the supplier recommended cost over $3000 less. For that amount of money, we can certainly handle some of the logistics.

I had pretty much the perfect chair when we lived in Godley, Texas and Oilville, Virginia, but we sold that chair along with the house in Virginia. The chair was a Barcalounger like the one my dad had when I was little. I loved that chair. Now, I have quite a comfortable chair and a wicker ottoman, but it is really not the same. I hope to get a new Barcalounger when we move into the new house, God willing. In the meantime, I have a great setup with a place to put my drink, an overhead lamp, and a window with a nice view while we wait for that.

I have been using AI to explore ideas about an auxiliary building to be used as a pottery atelier for Lorena. After several fits and starts, discussions with Brad, and advise from Lorena we have come up with the building on the right. We would need a variance from the City of Granbury to be able to build something this tall, about 10′ higher than the code currently allows for auxiliary buildings in the Historic Overlay District, but it fits the surrounding architecture and elevates the neighborhood in such a positive way that we think we have a good chance of getting the variance. It would almost certainly not include the lean-to, so we are trying to figure out a way to create the function of the lean-to as a gazebo separate from the building. This would not be built until we have the resources if it gets built at all, two or three years from now. Still, it is fun to consider and plan.

A little later this morning, Lorena and I will head down to the title company to sign the small loan we need to build our new house. We are very excited to get started. A day to celebrate!