HALTO! never been further

We've called a halt to the house building process for now.  We started on December 18th with one set of expectations but ended up having to face a different reality.  It is very disappointing to have another delay in our "next step", but sometimes one has to listen to intestinal intuition (also known as that gut feeling).

So now I will shift to some random pictures...

One of my favorites I call "the kindred spirits"...

Here's "the Demise of Saline Swamp Tree Rats".  Jack on his first "solo".  I should have turned that boy loose a year ago.

While Scott lives by his motto of "Once you go black, you never go back."

Random shift to a cactus from Uvalde...this was last years' bloom, and it's getting ready for the 2013 encore now.  Spring is around the corner!

Finally, another component of the basic food group works to increase nature's bounty.

Even though there will likely be no Bastrop Bayou home building updates, I'll try to blog about random topics once a week or so.

Never been closer...

No property pictures in this post...if you've been following, you probably know what it looks like better than me by now.  We are scheduled to meet with Schumacher Homes tomorrow for the pre-construction meeting.  This is where all of the details get finalized, the dreaming diminishes and the comittment gets serious.  I'm thinking we have all of our design elements pretty well thought out, and the final product will work for us.  We won't want to slow things down (or ramp up the cost) with major change-orders after tomorrow.

There's some city permits and an official survey (including elevation) that's next on our to-do list.  Schumacher will also take care of obtaining the POA (Property Owners Assoc) approval for our plans.  Since it is a fairly conventional house, I don't anticipate any problems.  When we get a copy of the final floor plan, I'll post some pictures here.

In the meantime, our trove of the endagered Johnson's Bayou irises are barely hanging on.  They've survived moves from JB to Carlyss to Ponca City to Houston, and then to the rent house...where they are in an old 120 qt marine igloo in the back yard.  Buck keeps jumping in there to protect us from lizards - they did not bloom last year.  We hope to find them a good spot at the new place back in the ground where they belong.

And a new feature...todays' "Random shot of the day".






August 2012, Lake Superior, MI with Chris, Gabby & Maggie

   

Getting Ready

It's been a week since our last update; sorry for the sporadicity (is that a word?) of my reports.  Work is crazy-busy right now, but all things will pass, right?

We're at the stage where we are trying to schedule the pre-construction meeting with Schumacher.  This will be the time to make any final modifications before we sign the contract.  The preliminary estimates from the builder for the lot prep (clearing/house pad/concrete estimate) came in higher than we had anticipated, so that's adding a little stress.  I'm sure we will be able to get it all worked out.  The fence, bulkhead/boathouse projects (priority highest to lowest) may not all be do-able in conjunction with the initial construction, but we will adjust our efforts as necessary to realize all of these visions before I say buh-bye to my corporate taskmasters.

Below is the floorplan from which we were working.  We are going to build with the garage on the left, so everything will be reversed.  At his point, it will give you a general idea...more to be revealed at a later date. 

There's another house going up across the street.  Our driveway will come in and sweep to the left towards the garage (to the right if you were sitting in the Toyota).

Here's a closer look at the twinoak.  It will be reaching towards the back porch.  You may notice some of the trees marked with a ribbon...these must be sacrificed to build the house.

Just a look at the live oaks on the side of the house.  We're taking out some of those leaners in the front.

A view from the front, where you can see some of the stakes.  The closest stake is how far the angled garage will extend.  The two stakes lined up behind that mark the west side of the house (master bedroom).  The stake by itself in the middle is the inside corner of the back porch.

Notice that the bee tree has come crashing down (well, in geologic time, anyway)...more like moving through Steen's syrup from the refrigerator.  Anyway, bees have been dispatched and holes plugged up so the tree clearing folks don't run into any problems.

The small tree in the front of the picture gets covered is white flowers in the spring.  I think it is related to a mayhaw. It will end up in a nice spot in front of the angled garage.

Lot's of work to do, we'll have to remember..."serenity now!".

Summer 2012

A year later (11 months, anyway) the construction next door was complete.  Their bulkhead and fence can be seen in the background here.  The drought of 2011 had been broken and the grass responded nicely.  I wonder why we have to water our lawns in the 'burbs (other than fear of getting nasty-grams from the HOA nazis)?

Firemaster Brian was shut down in June of 2011 by the local gendarmes for having a fire during a county-wide burn ban.  The tree cutting stopped and he fled to a neighboring state (said he was going to grad school, but I think he believed he couldn't be extradited from LA).  Anyway, we took the opportunity to resume burning some of the debris that remained from his last clearing efforts.  That fence looks nice.

The neighbors house (and a glimpse of the one across the street from them).

These little flowers showed up throughout the property...mostly around the bases of trees where we don't mow.  When we get down there for good, I'll try to collect some and plant them together for a splash of color.

This picture was added to show several things.  1) it's a pretty good shot of what the east side of the back yard will look like, 2) it shows how the leaning oak (bee tree) was continuing it's slow motion fall, and 3) the other tree with a severe lean (back right over the neighbors' fence) which has since been cut down.  The bee tree will be gone when we start house construction.  Is that Denise in the shade over there?  ...no, it's not.

After this, we endured a crisis of confidence and decided to market the property.  If it sold by the end of the year, we'd take it as a sign that it just wasn't meant to be. 

I took the following pictures in lower resolution for the realtor.

Here's a couple that capture the upstream and downstream bayou views (close to what we would see from a boathouse). 

A close up of the grassy bank with the neighbor's house in the background...

...and from the front corner of the yard by the street...

...and across the front yard by the soon-to-be driveway.

And I included this shot with a repeat from one of my first posts...Thank you, Brian.

contrast and compare...