New House

We can now make the announcement of what we have been keeping a secret since just before Christmas. We pulled the trigger on a new house and are confident that it will be completed by the target date of May 15.

When we arrived back in AZ in October, we really concentrated on trying to take advantage of the recovering housing market and the interest rates which have been hanging around at historic lows and are about to begin climbing once again. In order to actually do anything, we had to fatten our savings account by working full time and selling the truck to get as much cash as we could. None of this could happen if we 1)- couldn't prove to the mortgage company that we could afford it, 2)- couldn't gather the required cash for a down payment and to close, 3) couldn't convince the mortgage company that we are going to settle in the area and keep our jobs, 4)- couldn't sell the truck for the amount we thought it was worth. It is about as close now to a sure thing as we can get, so it's time to share our joy with everybody.

I'll try to give the best description and update of progress to date that I possibly can. Starting with a floor plan of our new house which, in our contracted configuration, is 2150 SF and a four bedroom plus den home. The floor plan is below: (click on the photo to enlarge)

We will actually have three bedrooms plus two dens. The middle bedroom will be turned into a den for exercise equipment and will not have a front wall, but be open into the hallway. The photos below will show the main living area and we chose the options that would give us an identical look to the model home. Starting with the view as you enter the home at the front entryway:

 and with a different look at the kitchen:

and a view from the patio sliders into the main part of the house:

While visiting the home site on Saturday morning, we met our next door neighbors who built a swimming pool at the same time their home was being built and they took us on a tour of their home. They are really nice people - from WA state - and this is a shot of them standing on the deck of their pool:

Although a pool is not in the immediate future for us, we have not eliminated the possibility entirely. We'll wait and see how the finances go.

We met George and Cheryl at the Haymakers Restaurant up the street form the home following church and we took them to see the model and our actual home site following our meal. Patty was informed of our plans on Saturday and was the first to know. Our house is just a slab right now, but will soon begin to look like an actual home. Here is the current view:

Our lot backs up to the wash and we will never have a home behind us. We will be updating everybody on the progress and about more features and events as we go along. We already have a pre dry wall meeting scheduled on March 13 with the Field Construction Manager and we have already had our first meeting at the site just before they poured the concrete for the slab last week.

There is so much to show and describe, but now that the cat is out of the bag, we can keep you posted with up to date changes and events.

How's that for a surprise???