On the Road Again …

Just returned from our second trip to Houston for Michael’s work. We left Sunday afternoon, had a quick visit to the “urban lake” of the Woodlands and dinner at the outdoor mall (pictures). We also tested our new snorkeling gear at the hotel pool and it gets an A+!

Michael worked all day Monday and I, well, I shopped. Which was hard work in its own way since I had to hoof it around town with all of my treasures. That night we went downtown for dinner and some more walking. Burning the calories in preparation for a certain aquatic vacation soon to be upon us.

Houston pics at the gallery too. Also, a concert we went to last week. And cousin Sarah’s baby shower. And, of course, the latest on the house.

Today, we met with our builder at the house to review our electrical plans. Thinking we’d be making final decisions before they began, we were surprised to see half the boxes and wires already placed and about a dozen workers making quick work of it all. I believe we’ve got all our wants and needs covered now though. Michael’s (“shockingly”) doing a lot of the installs after the house is built – mostly for budget-related purposes :) .

So, that’s the latest on the house. They should be finishing up the roofing this week, and while we’re on the road again (or, rather, the sea) next week they will start on drywall on the interior and brick and stone on the exterior. The progress is amazingly fast, much better than we hoped for.

More House Photos

Things are moving along so quickly out there now we can barely keep up with photos! It is very exciting. Mom, Dad, Anna & I took a trip out there today. (Michael’s flying back in tonight). Here’s a few pics from today’s trip.

Living Room View – You can see the covered patio behind me. The pool will be just a few dozen feet beyond.

Sunroom – I’m in the corner surveying the extreme vastness of this house and wondering how I’ll ever keep it clean. Anna’s in the living room. Dad has gone through the slider out to the patio.

Music Room View (second story)

In case you haven’t seen it, we’ve been keeping the gallery full of progress photos too. Can’t wait til y’all come visit us!

Escape from Suburbia

“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.”

–– Bill Vaughan

The “quote of the day” on my Google home page :)

On your marks, get set …

BUILD THAT HOUSE!

The first step in building your new home is, of course, advertising to all the neighbors that you will be building your new home.

First things first!

Quick trip to the property

Met with our septic and excavation guy today, and his pool building partner. The rain let up just long enough for us to walk through the site and take a few pictures. Can’t wait to actually get started. On the pool. Well, the house will be cool too, I guess.

Home is where the heartburn is

I suppose it’s about time to update you on our home building process. We are “in” the process, and it has given me some heartburn, but overall it’s really fun and very exciting. There is so much to tell you about, but I’ll start with the basics.

When we arrived in Austin, we took about 2 months to just settle in and recover from the (emotional and physical) stress of moving. During that time, we did our research and decided to use a national builder with an excellent reputation to build our home (David Weekley). They offer a wonderful compromise between “custom” and “standard” homes. By that I mean we selected a floorplan from their existing plans, and then began to customize it to our own preferences, in lieu of starting from absolute scratch. It is a perfect fit for us.

We decided on the “Sabrina” floor plan. It looks quite different now that we’ve added our own personal (tacky?) touch. The best part is we’ve added a 450 square foot bonus room to the second floor, which will become our new music room. We also added a full bath between the garage and backyard (aka the Pool Bath). More windows, some french doors, covered patios, etc… If you’d like to see our current plans, I’d be happy to email you. I’d post them here but we signed over the rights to our firstborn child to ensure absolute copyright protection. (I told them they could have Sammie, but that wasn’t good enough).

We signed all the contracts a couple of weeks ago, and are now in the architectural stage. We had our first redraw appointment with the architect yesterday, and with one more revision, should be done on that end. We start our design selections and upgrades on Saturday (cabinets, flooring, countertops, all the fun stuff).

We’ve staked out where the front door will go on the lot (yay!). All of our bids for site prep, flatwork, etc are in. We meet with the septic guy on Friday, who we’re also getting the first of two pool bids from.

So for now, it’s lots of stomach-churning, alka-seltzer inducing budget crunching. Smack dab in the middle of the dichotomy between what we want and what we want to pay for.

New Digs

I finally got around to cleaning the house this weekend, enough so I could take some pics and you can see where we live.

This is the only time it’s been this clean since we got here. We’re still working on getting things organized, in the garage mostly.

I’ll take some pics outside later. It is gorgeous here right now, green, green and more green. We’re always surprised when we go driving around at how clear everything seems. Then we remember “smog” is not in the Texas dictionary.

We didn’t end up camping last weekend because the weather was unpredictable. We’re hoping to check out Canyon Lake this coming weekend. Well see.

2 Weeks Notice

Well, we did it!

So I thought I should let everyone know that we’re finally (actually, for real!!) headed to Austin. Some of you know all the details already, some might be a bit surprised. Some of you don’t even live here anymore, but I thought you’d like to know! It’s going to be so hard to say goodbye to everyone, but don’t worry, we’ll come visit soon!

We will be around here, packing and loading the moving truck this weekend, so if you’d like to stop by and say hi, (or goodbye! sniff sniff) please do! The truck drives away on Monday, but we aren’t leaving for another week after that, so we’ll be in town. Please get ahold of us if you can! We want to try to make the rounds all next week, and see as many friends and family as we can.

We are planning a get together next Friday night (16th) at Claimjumper in Roseville, so stop by if you can! Call for details, just a low-key meet in the bar for half-price appetizers kind of thing.

Some details: We sold our home to the first people who came to look at it (but the second people to make an offer.) It has all gone unbelievably smoothly (and quickly!), which is just truly miraculous in this market. It seems we are really meant to be in Texas.

We went down to Austin last week to find a place to live while we build our new home, and ended up finding a little rental house that will work perfectly. (See left, yes it’s small and not very interesting but it’s cheap and convenient! Besides, not our forever home, that is coming soon ….)

Anna will be moving in with us to save a little money (but really because she misses us so much ;) We will be living fairly close to the Austin airport, so if you find yourselves wanting to go to Texas for any reason, we’re close and convenient, and you’re welcome to stay!

Our schedule: We’re signing papers on Monday (Feb. 12) and escrow closes Friday Feb. 16. We’re staying with Jess and Paul next week, one last long goodbye :( . Then Michael and Paul are leaving Saturday morning to make the Big Drive with the doggies. They will arrive on Monday (19th). I, being the special princess that I am, will be flying out on Tuesday, the 20th. Nothing sadder than booking a one-way ticket!

So there you have it, it is really happening. Now, I’m going to go curl up in a little ball and feel sad for awhile before I get back to PACKING!

You can reach us at 530-885-2389 (home) til Monday, call our cel phones after that. Michael 916-316-3011 and Sharon 916-316-3012. Or, we’re always online (of course) so email is always good. PLEASE keep in touch!

Lots and lots and lots of love,

Sharon and Michael

( … and Sammie and Bear)

Haven’t been blogging in awhile!

Too much to catch up on!

We’re now working on the second offer on our home. We (amazingly!!) got an offer after just a month, then a second offer came in last week with less of a contingency – so we are now working with new buyers who have already sold their home.

If all goes well, and as planned, we’ll be flying out to Texas at the end of the month to find a temporary place to live while we get our act together on actually building!! Escrow is scheduled to close mid to late February. I don’t think we’re anywhere close to coming to terms with that, but I suppose it will sink in one day.

I promise to give more detail soon, but just in case you’re checking, thought I’d try to be more recent than just “listing our home!” So much has been going on, too busy. Everything is slower in Texas, right? We did have a great Christmas, got to see lots of family and friends so that was fun. We’ve been down to LA a few times too, for Michael’s new job. More on that at a later date.

Be sure to visit the gallery! We upload pictures more than blogging these days, but not a whole lot of either! I did post some before and after pics for your viewing pleasure. We are really going to miss this home – not the work of course – but it has been a wonderful and beautiful place to live.

Our house is ON THE MARKET!

We officially went into MLS on Friday. Still waiting for the virtual tour photos, but here are some that I’ve taken of our handiwork. More to come, and maybe a gallery of before and after, since looking at these I see you can’t really tell what’s been done!

So, anyone want to buy a house? Wait, I take that back How about: Anyone want to buy some land in Texas?