We have a basement and foundation!

After the workers started on the cement block basement and foundation, it was finished within 2 days. We can really see the house taking shape now and see where it will sit on the lot, the size of the house, etc. It's also really fun to see the house behind us go up!

View from the street, looking toward the back right corner of the lot. Our front porch is on the left side of the house and our garage is on the right side:

View from the street, looking toward the back left corner of the lot. Our garage is straight ahead and the gravel will eventually be our driveway:

The cement blocks have arrived

Aside from a little gravel spread around the hole, no actual work has been done. However, each day more and more giant piles of cement blocks are being delivered.

 

The first piles of cement blocks arrive at the lot:

Bobby standing in what will eventually be our garage:

Caden was helping me climb into the hole so we posed for a quick photo op:

Caden goofing around and posing for pictures in our "basement":



The "Footers" are laid down...

The cement "footers" have been poured for our house. The cement blocks for our our basement and actual house will be built on top of these.

From the front of the house:

From the back of the house:

Caden playing on a pile of dirt:

Breaking Ground...

We no longer have just "dirt" and we now have a "hole"! The lot broke ground on Thursday, August 4th and our basement is now dug. The next step is working on the foundation and basement block.

Our hole!

Street views:

In front of our hole:

Caden on the excavator that dug our hole:

Bobby in front of the driveway:

Backtracking... the Floor Plans and Lot!

This should have been one of the first posts, but better late than never. We chose M/I's "Roycroft" floor plan for our home, but then made a lot of custom changes to the structure, layout and design of the home. Below are our final, custom floor plans created by starting with the builder's standard floor plan and working some magic with Paint :) Also, below is a map of our new neighborhood.

Lower Levels (the true "first floor" and the sunken lower level "entertainment room") - there is also a half, unfinished basement:

Upper Levels (master suite is on a raised split level and the additional bedrooms are on the true second floor):

Our lot is #96 on the North (left-hand) side of the neighborhood. The size/shape of the lot on this drawing is actually very inaccurate because it's a pretty large lot in comparison to others and is a lot deeper than many other lots so we'll have a nice, big backyard! The South end of our neighborhood borders The New Albany Links golf course.

Permits are Approved - Lot is Staked

The permits were approved on July 29th and by the next day, mysterious wooden stakes with pink flags were all over the lot. I say "mysterious" because after wandering the lot for 30 minutes, we still couldn't figure out exactly what they meant or what they were marking off.

We have our buyer/builder conference on Tuesday, August 2nd which will be the meeting where we walk through the blue prints, house design and lot plan with our construction supervisor. We've been told that the house should break ground the week of August 14th.

Our staked-off lot from the street looking diagonal to the back right corner of the lot:

Our staked-off lot from the street looking diagonal to the back left corner of the lot:

Caden and Bobby waving to me from what we guessed to be the spot of our future front door :)

Caden sitting next to the fire hydrant which will sit right next to the end of our drive-way:




Final Deposit!

The 30 day deadline arrived. We finalized the house's structure (added a box seat in the kitchen, jack and jill bathroom upstairs, etc) and we spent a total of 6 hours at the builder's design center picking out everything you can imagine, from the color of the crown moulding to the color of the tile grout. The final step before the builder submitted our permits to the Village of New Albany was for us to pay the final deposit for our new home. Here is the picture of us with the check outside of the builder's office, which made it official!

We signed the purchase agreement!

So the first step in the process was deciding on a lot for our house. As soon as we picked one and put down the preliminary deposit, the builder put a "sold" sign on our lot. Then we had 30 days to finalize the structure of the home and design the inside... cabinets, flooring, paint colors, everything!