Start of the framing 3/29/14

It is finally starting to look like a house now that the framing phase has started. The decisions are already starting to pile up. Our builder, Micky Barnes, asked what color windows we wanted. Seems like an easy decision right? NO! It is not, beige or clay....clay or beige?? We decided to look at brick and stone and thought that might help us make a decision. That turned out to be an even harder task. We found a stone we like but finding a brick color that we think will match the stone is an exhausting process. We drove around neighborhoods for a couple hours looking at different houses. We see brick we like and now have to try and figure out what the color is called. The brick was furnished by the company our builder recommended, so hopefully using the address and picture, the brick company will be able to look up the brick type in their database. We saw houses with the stone we liked but the brick that was paired with it was not appeasing to our eyes. And the search continues....

I think we are going with the clay windows since we seem to be leaning towards brick and stone that are in that color family. 

Master Bedroom

 Breakfast nook area and my handsome Hubs ;-)

 Family Room

 Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Many more rooms still to come! 

Starting on the floor 3/27/14

Foundation Photos 3/21/14

More progress, the footers are done !!

The hubs and I went out to the house site last Tuesday (3/11/14) to check out the progress and the footers are complete! We are not experts and had to google around to figure out the exact purpose these footers....A foundation footer is perhaps one of the most critical aspects of the house. It's almost always the first building element that contacts the soil that the house rests upon. The primary purpose of the footer is to spread out the weight of the structure across a larger footprint than the foundation would, if it were in direct contact with the earth. 


Humm....sounds very important! 
It was getting dark by the time we made it out there after work, so the photos are a little blurry due to lack of light. I probably should have turned the flash on.

We have progress !!

Things are finally happening! We met with Mickey on Monday to discuss the placement of the house and driveway. The plan was for them to come out later that week to put in stone for the the temporary driveway and to scrape the area where the house will be. The building permits are taking forever to get from Williamson County, a month and half later and I think they are finally coming through. We also had to make a decision on where to put the electrical pole for the transformer...Which took me a day and a half to decide! Scary considering all the decisions I will have to make in the months to come....
Yikes, I hope my husband is still around once the house is built, I might just drive him CRAZY!!
;-)

 Time for some PICTURES!! Photo creds to the Hubs.

Lot has been scraped 

 We have a port-o-pot! 

So much stone! 

 Mickey's Sign....Things are getting real !! This time next year we will be IN OUR NEW HOME!!

Working with Dad

Today my dad and I went out to the land to clear a portion of the existing barbed wire fence that is along the road front. Whew...that was not an easy task. We cleared out four eight foot sections and took out three posts. Thorn bushes, cedar trees and lot of vines and nasty weeds were tangled among the barbed wire. Even though it was hard work we enjoyed each others company and made a great team.

When we arrived we were surprised to see the septic area was already sectioned off. Bigger than I expected but there is still plenty of room for the house. :-)

Big pile is nasty weeds and brush we cleared.

Dad hard at work!

New spot cleared for the driveway.

We used the stakes from the fence to show were we want the house to go up.

Hard to see but they are there! 

After all the hard work we had dinner to celebrate the progress, salmon, green beans and a chocolate ganache CAKE!! from Whole Foods.

The Land

We finally found the land!

We started out looking at homes that were on the market but had a hard time finding a house in our budget that was not a cookie cutter home in a cramped neighborhood. We wanted some space and privacy! The homes on 1+ acres that we looked at were either old and outdated or in the middle of nowhere. We are currently living in the downtown Franklin area and even though we are 5 miles from the interstate it can take 20+ minutes to get there. We LOVE Franklin, our parents are close by and the school systems are amazing, it is the perfect little town for the family we plan on starting in the near future. I grew up in the area and my husband has lived here long enough to realize how wonderful it is. And we are not the only ones who think Franklin is the place to be, CNN Money agrees that Franklin is one of the "Best Places to Live in the US"! People are drawn to the area which also mean lots of traffic and that has got to be the worse part about living in Williamson County. The infrastructure is just not meant to handle the daily commuter and school system traffic, they are working on it, which is causing a cluster F**K right now but should be better eventually (EVENTUALLY!). Why they have decided that EVER route in and out of Franklin needs to be under construction at the EXACT same time...I do not know! Funding or potential loss of funding, bad planning...who knows but it sure is a mess right now. Okay...I'm ranting. Back to the finding the land. After our agent, Jane Phiffiner, set up showing after showing, I think she realized that we were not going to be satisfied with the current inventory of homes for sale. She tried old homes that were updated on bigger lots, new homes on nice sized lots, old homes under our budget with lots of potential for updating but nothing was satisfying us. I guess we didn't realize that our checklist was going to be so hard to fulfill. She finally suggested we talk with the builder that some of her other clients had used and were currently building with. After one meeting I was sold, who doesn't love the idea of having a brand new home that was made just for you! Soooo….next step was to go to the bank and see if we can make this happen and how the “construction loan” process works. CONFUSING, that’s exactly what it is! Thankfully I previously worked in banking and had a very close friend that worked directly in lending, she hooked us up with a great loan officer (Travis Smith at People’s State Bank in Nolensville, TN) and she was there with us for the whole process. Once we figured out how much cash we needed (15% of the total cost of the land and construction) we had a good idea on how much we could spend on the land and building the house. Then we started looking at lots, that was not easy either. PICKY, PICKY, we are PICKY! And we should be, we plan on living her for a long time, raising our kids here, making this our dream home. We looked at lots that were exactly one acre in upcoming neighborhoods, we looked at wooded area that were 3-8 acres, we looked a land on the North, South, East and West sides of Williamson County. The one acre lots in neighborhoods were too cramped and came with strict rules as far as what the house had to look like along with deposits for Architecture Review Committees, association fees, rules on what type of fence you can have, square foot minimums, landscaping requirements. NO THANKS! Raw land was a challenge as well…location, plot maps, soil tests, septic costs, was the lot level, were there additional cost for clearing trees. After looking at many potential sites for the new house we finally found a lot that already had a plot map, soil tests, septic map and was perked for a 4 bedroom house and was in the ideal location. It was located on the West side of Franklin 5 miles from the interstate, anyone who is familiar with the area know that traffic on the West side is nothing compared to other areas (anything off Mack Hatcher, Lewisburg Pike, Concord Rd, Nolensville Rd, Wilson Pike and in Thompson Station or Spring Hill—if you hate traffic STAY AWAY from these roads/areas!) The land use to be a dairy farm once owned by Ann and John Beasley who passed away and left the farm to their three daughters; Ann (Cothran), Sue (Fryer) and Lymn (Rhoades). Before Ann passed she sold two plots (that I know of), one plot is about 6 acres and was sold to former TN Titans player Rocky Calmus. The other lot is also about 6 acres and was sold to a very friendly guy named Buddy Tate. We met Mr. Tate while out looking at the land before we purchased it, he was there with his two children that appeared to be in elementary school. He was very friendly and as far as neighbors go, we think he will be a good one. Mr. Tate has owned his lot for a few years and plans to build a house on it soon, he is in the landscaping business and has planted TONS of trees on his property. There are hedges on his property line, willow trees and pines on the road front portion. His lot is looking good! He has even turned an old feed silo into a little “cabin” with electricity, a couch and he has a fenced-in garden all set up. On one side of us is the Beasley farm house, which they plan on selling and the other side is Mr. Tate’s lot, next to his lot is Rocky Calmus and his existing home. Rocky’s house is very nice and looks like it has been there for a few year, we have not met him yet, he is now in the landscaping business as well. My dad and I plan on going out to the land this weekend to take down the fence along the road and clear a spot for the new driveway to be constructed. The land is not much use right now but it is a nice place to bring the dogs to for exercise, and the hubs and I like to image what it will look like when it is OUR HOME!

SOLD to US!! YAY!! 

The land...not every exciting to look at yet.

Pictures of the house plans!

Pictures of the house plans!

The Fulgum House - Franklin, TN

 We are turning the "exercise room" into a room for our dogs. There will be a door to the outside and a fenced in area just for them.

The MAN CAVE area, this is all for my husband and we are adding a full bathroom up here in the "Alcove" area. Lucky husband, I will probably never see him again!