The Story So Far...

We've been told that once we get through the process of a complete home renovation, we could write a book. Instead, we decided upon a blog to document our journey. Who knows?  In ten years, we might look back on this whole experience and have a good laugh. Let's start with what's happened so far, shall we?

So why would you even do this to yourselves?!

Good question. For years, I have dreamed of having my own teaching space. Right now, I teach in the choir room at the church that I attend and also work/volunteer at. It's nice space, but it has its challenges because it is a shared space. Also, we bought our house as a fixer-upper special. We did some of the work that was required and then ran out of money. Over the years, we had other priorities and didn't give the house the love that it deserved, so it needs updates.

My teaching space.  Nice piano and big room, but I have to share it with Creepy
Mozart. He lives in the shadow box over there on the filing cabinets.

Two years ago, we decided it was time to do something. Move or stay put? Moving meant sinking some money into our house so it would be "market ready", plus we would have to mess around with Title V septic system stuff (also costly). Then, when we found our next house, unless we got really, really lucky, we would still need to do renovation work to make a studio space for me. How many houses do you know that have a big open space with a separate entrance, a bathroom, waiting area, and sound proofing? If we stayed, we wanted to create our dream house because we have no intention of moving any time soon. This may cost more money (maybe) than moving, but we have a great location -- just a few doors down from Tower Hill Botanical Garden in a relatively quiet little town. After quite a bit of discussion and researching the housing market, we decided to stay put.

We hired an architect and designed our dream home to be built on the bones of the existing house. Our cape will become a gambrel colonial.  Our segmented first floor will become an open floor plan. And we will have an addition that creates a studio space for me and gives us a two car garage. Designs were done by Fall of 2016 and we found a great contractor shortly thereafter.

Drawing of the front of the house.

The downstairs.  Check out my swank music studio in the back.
And a two car garage -- no more shoveling out cars!!!

And the upstairs.  Look at those bee-yoo-tee-ful walk-in closets.

Here's where I am going to take a moment and recommend our architect, Mike Halley. He's a really nice guy and is awesome at taking your requirements/wish list and turning it into a solid plan.

Work Starts in March and Other Adventures

Our house is too close to the road. It's not the house's fault. The town widened our road long before we bought the house. This means that any work we do requires us to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals.  ZBA application work was done in December before the holidays. Meanwhile, the contractor gives pencils us into the work schedule for March. Before loans can be applied for and permits pulled, we have to have our stamp of approval by the ZBA. In hindsight, this is something that we should have moved on more quickly.

Too close!!

Mid-January, we have a meeting scheduled with the ZBA and we run the legal notice in the paper and send out all the certified letters to our neighbors about it. The day of the meeting in February, we get a snowstorm. Meeting canceled. And it can't be rescheduled until late March because one of the board members is a snowbird and is in Florida. So much for our timeline.  

The contractor pushed our start date out to the beginning of June. Our meeting finally happened on March 27th where the design was approved. We got our official notice (after the requisite waiting period after the meeting) in April. Construction loan application is started.

This is where we learn that construction loans are bigger pains than a standard mortgage. And here's where we sit, waiting on the bank. This is a slow process. If the appraiser approves of the work and the bank doesn't want to dicker over the payment schedule with the construction company, it looks like we'll probably close mid-June.  This means we lose our current slot on our contractor's schedule, so stay tuned when the actual start date is.