Almost Nothing

Well, the sun has come out this morning on a brand new “snowless” day. We only thought we were through with ol’ man winter; he struck again this past week, leaving Marc on the edge of Minnesota with a closed freeway yet to drive in front of him and me sequestered inside yet again.

There hasn’t been much of note to comment on lately and I figure most folks have enough of the mundane in their lives they don’t need more from me. Now having health insurance for the first time in many moons, I’ve been catching up on all the wellness tests and exams the new Obama Care covers at no cost, including the dreaded colonoscopy. Thankfully, all went well with everything and I felt quite good at only receiving a bill of $236 for $4300 worth of medical tending to.

Next, it is Marc’s turn; he’s had a fatty tissue tumor growing on his lower back for years so he is scheduled to have surgical removal of that this coming Wednesday. That will earn him the rest of the week off work as he is forbidden from driving. Of course, his will cost a pretty penny since our policy has a $10,000 deductible so is virtually worthless for anything short of catastrophic happenings.

Although I haven’t been out to our lot lately, I’m sure the snow is about gone. There was a huge difference in just a week’s time in mid-March as you can see from the photos. Now that we can actually see the terrain our next step is to do some planning on placement—where we want the house, where we want the garden and the very tall fence we are going to need to keep the deer out. Marc has worked hard (with his little spare time) to build walls of shelving in the garage and is redoing the entire electrical there as well. It feels like baby steps but with him gone out of state much of the time and working such long hours, this project will likely slide by at a glacier’s pace. Life never goes as planned, does it?

Just the Usual; Waiting for Winter's Demise

There really hasn’t been a lot going on here since Marc ended up being out of town for about ten days on his recent supervisory visit to the projects. He travels during his time off over Sundays usually so did a very long stretch with no days off so arrived home extremely tired. Since he is salaried, there’s no watching the time clock on his job and he’s probably easily working 60 hour weeks which is hard to keep up with when you’re getting to be an old guy!

I had a good meeting with the Blenker representative to make selections and decisions on the interior & exterior of the home and am into deep consideration now of wall colors. So far I’m weighing in heavily on grey-greens and grey-blues for those; I’m sick of whites, tans and beiges and figure any dark colors are a real no-no in this climate since it is gloomy much of the time. I’ve also been trying to narrow down some flooring choices knowing that what I really want (real hardwood) isn’t going to happen this first go-round so I’ll need to come up with something we can live with for a few years. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the new choices in laminates which they are now even making in things like look-alike slate.

If I end up getting my cabinet choice in the kitchen*, I’ve chosen a very nice granite-look Formica which goes very well. I actually prefer Formica over granite as I don’t like the coldness and hardness of granite since I am fumble-fingers and often dropping glassware and plates. Formica is much more forgiving! Plus, they have now come up with a way to attach an under-mount sink so I am able to get the deep, one hole stainless apron front sink I wanted. *This cabinet finish, being hand distressed and glazed, is a whopping 40% up charge over other stain choices so the question is whether we can truly afford these. To help out, I specified in the kitchen design, that all uppers be open shelving which will actually be builder-built and painted white. This should actually give more storage area and has the added benefit of creating a nice open and airy look thus visually expanding the space more even though this will be a great sized kitchen at around 11x20 feet. 

The first photo shows the door style I’ve chosen and it will be on knotty alder which will hopefully create the rustic look I am after. The second picture shows my choice of counter top and the third picture shows the runner up. I dearly loved this dramatic dark granite look, thought it went fantastic with the cabinet sample  and was so realistic looking, but overall I thought it would just end up being way too dark for a kitchen. I prefer a nice, bright kitchen, something cheery, rather than weighty.

Marc finally has a weekend off so we will be working on moving more things from our apartment garage to our shop and the apple trees are now due for pruning and spraying before they bud. Wisconsin’s winter has been one of the hardest on record; we surpassed the 1910 record set for most amount of minus degree days, at 55 so far. We have about 28” of snow on the ground currently, with a little over 70” of snowfall recorded. We have averaged 20 degrees below normal temperature ranges since November. To say we’re ready for spring is a gross understatement! Bring it on!

Brimming With Ideas

We’re still dealing with lots of winter here and Marc just got off to more of it this week in North Dakota as he oversees his projects there. You can tell what Munchkin thinks of it all…er, wait; this is what cats always do right? 

We closed on our additional acre lot last Friday and I’m hopeful to make some progress this week on making some selections so we can start the process of working towards a price quote on part of the house. I will meet with Jenny at Blenker’s, in their nicely done showroom where we’ll go over selections of things like roof color and material grade, windows, siding, interior doors and millwork, and most important to me, kitchen cabinetry and counters. We intend to stick pretty close to basics, hoping to hold price down as much as possible, figuring we can always upgrade later to better materials as we can save the money for it. Marc is insisting upon a high grade of roof and some decent windows though since those are difficult to trade out later.

I’m very excited to finally be at this stage but I feel as though in my mind’s eye I have been at it forever. I have a computerized idea book that is bursting with photos and ideas but which causes me to constantly second guess my choices. Do you ever find that about modern life—that there are just too damn many choices anymore? I mean, how does one chose from thousands and thousands of wall paint colors for instance? Have you had the need to check out flooring lately? Not only are there too many choices in materials, within each category there then are too many grades and categories and finally, too many patterns and colors. It’s enough to drive a person mad! 

We can say we are fairly certain of our floor plan however. This is the stock plan and we’ll be making some changes to it. The plan is small but sports a few really nice features, like the screen room right off the main living area of the house which will make indoor/outdoor living a breezy convenience. Marc will have a full on basement which will effectively double the square footage but it won’t be finished off at first.

We have the idea to move the laundry closet to the hallway by the master bedroom since we can get by with less room in the master bath. We only need a shower and one sink in a smaller vanity so we can eliminate the tub and larger vanity with second sink. The former laundry closet will then open on the kitchen side becoming a large pantry closet. We also don’t have any need for a large dining area (preferring a really long island/eating bar instead) so we plan to move kitchen cabinetry farther into that space giving room for a built-in wall oven and microwave where it shows the current pantry cupboard. This will also serve to enlarge the kitchen to the professional size with lots of counter space that we desire. We’ll be moving the cook top from the island but not sure just where as yet, and hope to have it topped with a statement custom hood/vent that will be the focal point of the kitchen. 

Finally, I am being drawn strongly to a very different type kitchen cabinet, done with a specialty stain that resembles coastal driftwood in color. It’s called Appaloosa and after thinking long and hard about it I think I can make it pretty striking by accessorizing with coastal colors and white, using a very pale grey wall color. Here are a couple photos of the model kitchen showing it on cherry; it’s also available on rustic alder and maple. So I’m fairly certain I have the color chosen; now to choose the door style and wood species. This is just the beginning folks; stick around!

Bone Chilling

Marc arrived back Friday from his latest trip to the icebox of North Dakota and oversight of his projects. It’s become a very long, boring drive for him at this point but with many more on the horizon there won’t be any breaks. 

Saturday we decided to get some exercise on our lot despite temperatures that started in the minus realm. We also took time to obtain a post office box in the Waupaca P.O. and I was charmed to see the old boxes. We love the historical details of many of the buildings in this area.

We have a new and necessary toy for this climate—a snow blower—and Marc wanted to make sure I would know how to run it. He’s trying to keep a trail to the empty shed and a driveway cleared out so he finished up while I enjoyed standing in the cold sunshine. It was just nice to be outdoors and see it beaming.

For this year we have decided to place our garden in the mostly already fenced area adjacent to the shop. We figure even though the fence is short, it is solid so should keep rodents at bay and hopefully deter deer as well. We just have a little while until the snow melts to planting time….Meanwhile however; our apple trees look to be getting to the point where they may need pruning. We discovered a third one out front so we should be very well supplied with fruit come fall.

While we were working, we were approached by the owner of the two contiguous lots to the west of ours who is interested in selling. He is willing to take a sizeable loss since he purchased during the boom years and offered excellent owner terms at zero interest so we will likely buy the one immediately adjacent to ours, which is another full acre. It has an approved perk test and we figure we could do a well share with our current well so utilities should not be that onerous to install. If nothing else, at a giveaway price, it will serve as a good buffer for no close neighboring house and if things work out in the future it could give us development possibilities for either a spec house build or building a rental property.

The Closing

Our closing on the lot was last Friday, while Marc was still in North Dakota overseeing his projects. Modern technology meant everything could be done through PDF and email; in fact, there was a mere two signatures required on our part. We’re now the proud owners of a piece of Wisconsin—once we get the chance to truly see it when the snow is gone! 

We spent yesterday moving the things that Marc brought back from Yuma into the shop and since it was very cold and even spitting snow, we just did a general dump and run. Marc did purchase a new snow blower, lumber and some insulation since he intends to slowly insulate the shop and improve it with plywood walls and new shelving. He’ll also re-wire the electrical but that will be a warm weather endeavor.

We’re dealing with quite a bit of snow in spots where it has drifted up. It seems as though I have become the “defacto” snow shoveler at the apartment complex—I’m one of the few here who don’t work out and I actually like the exercise and chance it provides to get outside at least for 15 minutes at a time. The temperatures are miserable enough, with many days featuring minus wind chill factor, that I do nothing else outside excepting running quickly from my car into any shopping I do. I spend lots of time on the computer researching things for the upcoming house.

We are still determining favorite floor plans and the next step will involve meeting with Marc’s employer to see what they can actually build it for. I would suspect we won’t be able to actually start until April since there is a lot of snow to melt off and it won’t be until then that we can determine the final outcome of the septic system. The testing showed that it passed for a new system but the engineer suggested he could do an evaluation when snow is clear to see if can repair the current system at much less cost. Where that system lies will determine where we can place the house. 

There are things I can get done in the meantime however, contacting the town and obtaining a new address is first on the list. Originally this was part of a 40 acre farm (the farmhouse burned down but we now own the original shop) which subsequently was subdivided into one acre lots and the current address is actually for that no-longer-existing home. Our ingress will have to be off one of the new subdivision streets rather than the county highway as previously, so that will require new mailbox placement, etc.

Common' old man winter, get on out of here soon so we can get busy!

Success!

Marc has been off slaying his dragons in North Dakota this week but before he left on Sunday we revisited looking at a lot for sale that I had seen earlier last week. Meeting directly with the owner and his agent we were able to have all our questions answered which was of great benefit and helped to solidify our decision. So, in our Waupaca agent’s office Saturday late in the day we wrote an offer. That has gone back and forth with a couple of counters but we have now come to a meeting of the minds and price so it looks like by the end of January we will finally have our spot! The offer is subject to a perk test for a conventional septic system but we expect no problems on that score.

It’s the perfect size for us, just a little over an acre of all level, sandy soil ground with a mighty big country feel yet only a mile into the town of Waupaca. It sits with 360 degree local views of rolling forested hills and pastures, flanked by an upscale subdivision of homes all on similar one acre lots. Some city services are available, cable TV and high speed internet and natural gas, yet the property has its own well and best of all the subdivision CCRs do not apply to this lot so we won’t be regulated as to RV parking or a particular size house. In addition, there is an older three car garage/shop and a small storage shed. Electric is already on the property but will likely require the power pole to be moved. To top it off, there are two mature apple trees! When we asked the owner what kind of apples he playfully answered, “One’s the cooking kind and one’s the eating kind.” All righty then…

We got a good dumping of snow on Tuesday (around 9 inches) so the kitties and I are just hunkering inside. Here’s Munchkin watching closely as I put some homemade bread together; I exclusively make all my own bread for about the past year—it is so much yummier and healthy than store-bought. Now just waiting for Marc’s return very late on Friday! Our next step will be to meet with the Blenker people to get an idea of actual cost to build the home plan we like.

The Follies of Winter

Our new year has started with a bang of icy cold temps so it’s been a battle for Marc to try and keep the vehicles running. He returned from Yuma with the Dodge which he parked last night in front of the garage door blocking my car inside. His company car, a diesel Jetta, would not start this morning; in fact, the battery just rolled over and died, nor can he get the Dodge started. So the only car that might likely start, my Saturn, sits trapped inside the garage. I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t planning on going anywhere today because this is what we are battling outside this morning: 

Things are back into the winter groove around here since Marc’s return and the holidays are out of the way. I’ve been spending lots of time researching properties and looking around the small community of Waupaca, which seems a good choice for our new home. In addition to considering building lots we have also started looking at resale homes. Waupaca is a charming town full of historic character homes but so far, they’ve all had some major issues which would require oodles of renovation and fix-up. 

I am likely driving my Realtor nuts, vacillating back and forth between things but this could be our forever home from here on out so we want to make the right choice. It’s particularly hard looking at things with snow covering everything and vegetation so barren but this is the better season for deals so I will keep up the pace with the search!