Slow Pokes

We're STILL waiting for our permit. They are promising we will have it tomorrow, but we just wasted a week which sucks. And even more annoying, they are requiring Curt to pick it up and sign it in person. Not me, not a contractor, just Curt. I guess because he is the official "home owner-builder" after taking their test. So he has to drive up there again at the crack of dawn tomorrow, and probably wait around because it won't be ready, and then work on his laptop the rest of the day. He will also take his electrical test and get that out of the way. Silly, but if all goes well, Monday things will move forward. Last Sunday, we met with our new contractor Shawn and the concrete guy. Shawn has reworked some numbers and we're happy with how things stand. Still crunching numbers and bids on almost everything else...a little scary. So many things like windows, doors and insulation are more expensive due to the extreme climate we will be sheltering ourselves from as well as the permit and sustainability requirements. We also can't cheap out on everything due to the architectural review imposed upon us by the HOA.

Our friends Steve and Kristen also stopped by from Vail to check things out with their dog Cody. He was excited to roll around in the tiny patch of snow left in the shaded patio. We even swung by the farmers market in Breck and let the pups swim in the Blue River that flows through downtown along Main Street. They were happy to escape the 90+ heat in Denver. We drove by the HOA president's house and he was outside with his wife so we met them. And also found out about another $5k we need to pay them for a "construction deposit." Every time we talk to someone else, it seems a few grand disappear. Luckily that $ is refundable at completion but it's still a big chunk we have to live without until we're finished. The HOA president Tom did agree to only charge us $3,500 because of Curt's "great attitude" so that's good. Apparently the guy building across the street from us is being a royal pain, so Tom is thankful we're trying to cooperate with him.

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary and we're going out to dinner to celebrate - with a Groupon of course! A lot has happened in just those four years, not to mention all those that came before. Each year is so different from the last, I learn so much and we embark on crazier and crazier adventures. I'm thankful we both welcome change. We discovered earlier that we got each other the same cookbook from our favorite chef Jen Jasinski from our fav restaurant Rioja (and now Euclid Hall - German and Bistro Vendome - French). Pretty funny. We do have SOME things in common ;) Jen trained under Wolfgang Puck and competed on a Food Network Challenge where she cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal by herself in under an hour! She recently married another cool Denver chef Max McKissock who runs a tiny restaurant-turned-speakeasy in our old neighborhood. Formerly The Squeaky Bean (for the sound fresh green beans make, pretty cute) and now The Occidental. We finally hung some things on the walls last night, our dairy delivery started today so we have fresh eggs/milk/juice/bread for the holiday, our potted plants on the patio are healthy and thriving, we tapped a fresh keg of Breckenridge Avalanche beer last night, we have some Gallagher-caught wild Alaskan halibut defrosting for dinner tomorrow and we're planning a little BBQ this Sunday to watch fireworks from the deck with friends...so all in all, a pretty good weekend ahead :)

So much is going on!

We ordered cedar siding for the outside of the house, and steel beams for the foundation/basement (I think). Our groundwater test and site inspection went fine and the permit should be issued within the building department today, meaning we will probably get it in our hot little hands next week. A few contractors will be around this Sunday so we're going up to meet them and go over the first bit of work on the actual house. We're hoping Myron can come and help us give them some guidance, even though he's booked for the next few weeks, because he had a pretty conservative plan to leave much of the sheeting up. And for the sheeting that does need to come down, he only wanted to take parts of each board down. All of which saves us money and time. Multiple people (engineer, architect, contractor) have confirmed that almost all of the existing wood is structurally sound in spite of taking a beating over the last few years. We've also been getting bids for our septic and well and they're reasonable compared to what we had estimated. Curt also got a bid for the radiant heating equipment that will go under our floors but still wants another one. And I think insulation too. All sorts of stuff. Bits and pieces of our new home. He's doing lots of negotiating with all these bids, getting the numbers as low as possible. We have saved a little over $100k since the beginning of this year (of course that includes profits from selling our house and my car) and by the end of this year, will have another $30k in the pot. That should get us through most of the initial goals we have for this year - getting the house finished on the outside with working water, heat and septic. Hopefully inside walls with some electrical done, at least one bathroom and maybe a somewhat finished bedroom. The kitchen will probably not happen until next year so we have time to save more money. Depending on setbacks, it's making me think we really might be able to pull this off in a year using only our savings and without any type of loan. But I reserve the right to change my mind on that in a month or two ;) Maybe we need an entire additional $100k to finish this thing?

It's crazy to me that no one is giving Curt directions on any of this, he just knows what to do and when to do it. At least so far. I certainly don't! Even though this is all a lot of new info to me, I'm really relieved we aren't starting 100% from scratch, like leveling the plot of land, staking out the foundation, picking a house design and all those other very first steps. We're a big jump ahead from all that which is exciting. Can't wait to be up there on Sunday, it'll be 70 and sunny with a whirlwind of activity going on! The Breckenridge Cruisers will be out for a Sunday ride (their official themed summer rides are on Thursday evenings) and I wouldn't mind catching sight of them, just out of curiosity. The Breckenridge Farmers Market is also on Sundays so maybe we can swing by that.

A new farmers market just started in Edgewater, a neighborhood we live right on the border of, so it's just a few blocks from our house. It runs on Thursday evenings and we stopped by briefly last night. I missed most of the food stands because we were busy getting set up with a local dairy for milk/eggs/bread/juice delivery! Maybe butter, cheese, sour cream, half and half and coffee creamer every once in a while too. And they sell green chile! This is something I've wanted to set up since moving here because we hear raves from everyone we know that uses Royal Crest. It's even cheaper than buying those items at the store and delivery only costs $3 per month. We started getting squeamish about cheap eggs recently after having a few gross frying experiences during weekend breakfasts and I'm excited to get local eggs with no hormones or junk in them for just $1.59 per dozen - delivered to my front door in a cute chest covered in ice! I tried a few types of their fresh milk and even the 2% and fat free versions tasted as good as whole (or what I imagine it tasting like - super rich and creamy). The chocolate milk tasted like melted ice cream. They even have soymilk. If only I could end my addiction to Tillamook, maybe we could get cheese too. They carry Chippewa, which appears to be a small Wisconsin-based company. We'll have to go out on a limb and try it. We just ended our Costco membership and the only thing I will really miss about that is the cheap bulk Tillamook. A hard habit to break.

In Through the Out Door

Today is our groundwater test! We might have our permit this week! I’m shopping for front doors! Holes have been dug in the ground! I forget what the holes are for. Curt went up Sunday to help clear some wood and other materials out of the way so someone could dig holes for a reason I don’t recall. But he was very excited about it. While he was there he met two more contractors who are hungry for work. Our contractor Myron is actually still on another project for a few more weeks so this works out ok. Curt put in one more bid for our windows today but I expect we’ll get those ordered this week too. In spite of two trips up there to measure the windows, our numbers still don’t quite work out, but I think we’re awfully close. And I’m looking for front doors. While I don’t want to spend a ton of money, I do want something unique and cool. No surprise, all of my first picks are way beyond what I’d imagined doors could even cost. I think something kind of extreme – either really super hard-lined, cold and modern or really beat-up barn-y/rustic/gothic – is up my alley. Something you would not expect in a mountain house or cabin. Definitely something you won’t see on any of the neighbors’ houses. So far, the modern doors I’ve found and liked are crazy $$$. I love the horizontal lines. Maybe we will do something with reclaimed wood to save money.

Sunshine, My Hero

The snow is melted! The man who just started finishing the other partial build across the street in Breck sent Curt pics of our house yesterday, and there is NO snow to be found! Well, one tiny mound on a shaded side of the house, off the guest bedroom. But not only is everything else melted, all the wood looks bone dry too! Happened fast, it's a crazy climate we live in. There isn't even any runoff or mud, the dirt is dry too. We were going to head up there this weekend to shovel the remaining snow off the structure and now we don't have to. Since the temps are hovering right ABOVE freezing finally every night, the groundwater test can be scheduled ASAP. Then we can get cracking! In my dreams, I'm hoping we can finally get our permit issued after that groundwater test, get the septic and well in the ground and get Myron (our contractor) and his team out there removing the wood that needs to come down and doing all of the other work we discussed with him - maybe all within the next month - so after we get back from Michigan in mid July, we can start spending our weekends up there working. We'll see how it really unfolds though. Temporary power is up there already and I guess we need a portapotty too. Gross, but I think it's the law.  Yay!

Front side with front door at the back, great room windows and master bed door to deck

Back corner of master bedroom to the right and guest bedroom to the left

Only snow left! Corner of guest bedroom

Friday Afternoon Musings

When I first started writing this blog, I actually had a bunch of food/recipe posts. All of the vegetarian recipes I was playing around with, the passed down pickle recipe I knocked out of the park, a party recipe or two... I took them down, I'm not sure why. I don't know anything about blogging, and certainly not cooking, but if my blog reflected what I spend most of my time thinking about and doing, it would be about cooking and recipes, not my house. Well, in all honesty, it would probably be nothing but the dozens of photos I take daily of our dogs. 99% of the time they're sleeping. Very exciting! The rest of the time, they're moving far too quickly to be photographed, not that I don't try. Cooking blogs are a dime a dozen, as are house/DIY blogs. But since I'm not writing for an audience and probably won't ever be in this venue, I guess I'm not going to stick to one topic. I may write more about food. Or other things. Writing is good mental exercise for me whether it's good reading or not :) I don't have a fancy camera or take detailed photos when I cook and that's held me off since other food bloggers do. But even though house stuff is exciting to me and our projects do take up much of our conversations and time, when I read my own blog it feels a little one sided whereas our lives have many more dimensions. I haven't been documenting our personal lives and maybe those are even more boring than our projects or my attempts at cooking. I haven't written anything about our jobs, even though my life has been consumed by my job to a degree I didn't know possible for the last six months, resulting in two very difficult losses with some painful lessons learned. Read: insomnia and soul searching. Meanwhile Curt is kicking ass in a job I tried to talk him out of taking. But he stuck to his guns and proved me wrong. Happens all the time. And he's probably about to get a raise after just six months due to increasing some numbers he's responsible for to levels never seen before in his company. And then on the side helping some friends buy and sell houses in an incredibly difficult market, landing him a very public and very glowing recommendation on Yelp - and probably a new client or two. I haven't written about all of the crazy fun visits by family and friends, of which our lives positively revolve around planning for. Happily! So I might start.

Little Lull

We've had a little break in frantic activity. Curt finished the closet system in our room two weekends ago and that was the last storage-related task on our list. I need to get pics up of all his recent helpful handiwork. But there are some things we're just waiting on that need some more time to think through. After some furniture rearranging that ended up not sticking, I think we both agree the current set-up isn't working. The furniture extends too close to the barstools making that walkway pretty narrow and Curt's not a fan. But we like the stools more than the living room furniture. We've done a little shopping in stores and online, found a few options that are decent, not great, but never pulled the trigger. We're waiting for IKEA to open July 27 because they have a simple couch that you can configure with two chaises. That's what we really want - a chaise for each of us (and of course a pup on each lap). They are under a grand and come in a bunch of fabrics including a corduroy that Curt wants. A huge matching ottoman is only $150. I think we'll sell the too-small cream chair and ugly patterned chaise from CL, put the leather couch in storage (love it but we were trying to work around it and nothing was working - it belongs in the mountains anyway) and just go with that single couch with two chaises.

Might not even get the ottoman - Curt has plans to construct a coffee table similar to the pallet coffee table he made before on wheels, but with reclaimed thick plank wood on top rather than pallet wood. We're going to pick up some reclaimed wood this weekend so we can start our dining table next weekend. Another farmhouse table but that only seats 6-8 rather than 12, and a more rustic, darker finish rather than the smoothed shiny lighter finish he did last time. More like weathered gray-brown fence boards. We saw a perfect example in Aspen last weekend at a restaurant. He plans to have that same reclaimed wood on top of both the dining and coffee tables. He also may build a media console/cabinet out of it. We haven't found much we liked for that space either. We have a big chunk of wall to fill but only two components to store and no tv to sit on top. Nothing has fit the space or our needs quite right yet. Hmm.

So, some waiting and simmering. We also ordered knobs for our kitchen cabinets from ebay but they were slightly misadvertised so we need to find another option. Looking for brushed nickel but they arrived looking like lightweight brushed aluminum and plastic/cheapy. Still waiting on the right cords to hang our nightstand lights in the bedroom. Need to have our dining room table built and in place so we can make sure we hang our new light properly over it. Waiting on table placement to hang a few more prints and a mirror. We still need to paint the hallway and kitchen/dining walls because they've been touched up everywhere with paint in the wrong finish. Would have liked to do the office but it's filled now and I probably won't anytime soon. Same with the guest bedroom - the furniture's in there and we probably won't move it or paint in the near future. There's not much left on our short-term list here. The other wishlist but non-essential things like wood floors and new appliances and countertops and a tiled backsplash are probably a year out or more.

But on a very exciting note, our summer is predicted to be long, hot and DRY both here in Denver and in the mountains. After getting feet of snow daily up until just a week or two ago, it's now in the upper 60s and even 70s in Breck and snow is melting fast. A radical change - luckily we are so high that we won't have an issue with flooding like everywhere else in the state this year. Socking away all our pennies so we can jump out of the gate fast. Can't wait to see how quickly we burn through what we have saved! We've put pen to paper many times to sort it out but in reality I know we are in for an unpredictable ride. Between selling our house and a car and some extremely aggressive saving, we've got more in the bank now than we did before we bought the damn land. So that's good. Bet we spend it even faster than we saved it...

And we recently found out from the realtor on the Meade house that a cash buyer came along. Really that was the only way to get around the inspection issue since you don't need bank approval for the loan - if you aren't getting a loan. They're now going through the short sale waiting game we did but if they pass that, they'll probably close quickly. I'm curious to see what is done to the house in the coming months. I pass it twice daily on my bus rides and can see the house from the street. So it hasn't totally left my mind. There have been a few days where I admit I've wondered to myself what projects we'd have going on and where we'd be in that process we had mapped out so quickly and thoroughly and with such excitement. But luckily all the other days, I'm just relieved because we've had our hands full making minor tweaks to our new place and most importantly it isn't causing a financial hit to our other plans. And we've still had quite a few visitors streaming in and we've been able to host them comfortably. Curt's had more time to tinker with his furniture projects. And we have a lot less house to maintain and to be honest, it's a lot less work!