… swimmingly?? Sure!

It’s been a couple weeks since any updates due to lack of activity. The framing is done and electrical work is beginning to go in. We can now walk through rooms, plan the placing of furniture, and cross our fingers for low interest rates. We don’t have much wiggle room with our official approval so you can all join us in praying for the rates to stay low or go lower!!

Here are a few pictures of what’s been happening.

We are actually MOVING out of our apartment this SATURDAY!! Can you believe it??  Will and I aren’t moving straight into the house (obviously there’s more work to be done), we will be staying with my dad. We haven’t been given a closing date but at least we have a great place to stay until that time comes.

Lookin' good.

Funny on the stairs

View from the fireplace looking into the living room and kitchen

The back of our building

Just a warning… this will be a LOT to take in!!!!

Here is what we (Will) found Thursday on our lot.

Thursday - First day of framing.

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday - view of hall/kitchen/dining room from foyer

Friday - early evening.

Saturday evening we went to the mall with Eric for a while but found this on the way…

The front of our house!!

The back of our house!

Front Porch tradish

Sunday evening… we had stairs and could get up to the second level!!!!

Our pretty stairs!

the front with silver over the garage area

our guest room / austin's room.

a maze of wood that makes up the second floor - view from loft.

the back patio and yard.... tiny but nice. View from master bedroom.

Front porch!!

So with all the action…. we’re STILL waiting for word on our loan. It’s currently in “underwriting”… has been since Thursday and should be complete any minute!

Can you believe this is our house… not some random house on the street??????

Sorry it’s been more than a week since I last updated everyone. We’ve had a lot going on but not a whole lot to write about.

Last week our foundation was poured and can now be walked on.

Throughout last week the framing was supposed to start but, praise the Lord, it didn’t due to huge amounts of summer rain.  We’ve seen lots of puddles and a few skateboarders around our house. One night last week I actually got to kick them out by telling them they were “skating in my living room” and I didn’t want them to get hurt or hurt my house.  So they left.

The foundation was still very exciting for the two of us. A friend of mine who works in real estate told me once that the foundation is actually the most expensive part of a home. As it should be! Without a sturdy foundation the entire thing could collapse. So the fact that it’s there and waiting for more… it’s a pretty big deal.

This week we have had more interaction with the bank. Our KB representative was on vacation last week so we didn’t feel quite as pressured to get our ducks in a row. But she has returned from Colorado and is often on our minds. So far this week we have turned in more recent financial documents and today I turned in my first paystub from my new job!! Praise the Lord!!

 

 

Front Porch Photo… it’s our new tradition.

Yesterday Will and I saw each other driving by the house after work. Actually he was on his way home from work and I was coming home from the grocery store. Anyway, we were both happy to see LARGE PILES OF WOOD on our lot!! That’s our house. The giant piles of wood labeled, “Amberly Townhomes Lot 601″ … that is what will make up our house.

Amazing.  It’s like our lives, too. God takes these crazy, non-sensical piles of stuff and He creates something beautiful and more sturdy than we could ever do ourselves.

 

The picture above is of our first floor... at least it WILL be our first floor. The house in the backgrount isn't ours, I know it's confusing.

 

 

I mean, really… imagine Will and I attempting to take these pieces of wood, grab the blueprint and start hammering stuff together. I can tell you right now, from my childhood birdhouses… it wouldn’t turn out too pretty.

But that’s why we get to put that trust in someone else’s hands to put it together.

 

…. Where to begin?

In the week since my last entry our world has been rocked a little. Or a lot. My last entry was Monday afternoon of last week.

Monday evening of last week Will and I were finishing dinner when I get a call from my boss at the center, Tom. After a phone call, cleaning and a visit from Tom I find out I’ve lost my job. My employment status is actually confusing but that’s another issue.

In the Front Yard

I go through most of the week considering looking for another job but really not making progress on the idea. Will and I can easily survive on just his salary so I don’t stress about it too much.

This past Monday, (two days ago), I get a call from our mortgage broker, Cathy. I found out they needed verification of employment for Will and I both. Talk about bad timing!!

Needless to say, this has been a week of stress, panic and buckets of tears.

Praise the Lord I got a job within a week of losing the first!! He has provided through connections at church and it might help make more money than I made at the center.

the front right corner of photo is corner of garage, left side is the porch, foyer then the rest of our house goes straight back.

If you could please join Will and I in praying about this house. The builders are pushing hard for a final letter of approval and there are soooooo many variables going into this and it’s taking much longer due to my job situation. We basically have to re-do all paperwork. Our broker admitted to me that she is concerned the builders will grow impatient and possibly try to give our home to someone else.

So please pray the builders (KB) will have patience, that we can quickly get the proper forms complete and that we approve for our loan!!

I feel Will and I are truly learning life lessons during this time. But I’d really love it to end quickly and happily.

before job loss.... and everything else.

PS… They’ve prepared our home for the foundation!!!!!!!!!

We had our Pre-Construction meeting yesterday (Wednesday). They were supposed to pour the foundation today but it is yet to be done. But it looks like we are still on schedule for early September closing. Which makes me slightly nervous due to everything else going on.

We remain hopeful. Praying for patience and wisdom. Praise the Lord for the miracle of a new job!

I have made an executive decision. I am going to post weekly on this blog. Now that we have things happening regularly to our “house” I can write more often. But more than once a week for a house might just be silly.

standing in our foyer

Over the past two weeks I’ve been getting more excited than I thought possible about our house. Will and I have picked out a few things we will buy once we move in. We have looked over our finances again and have a renewed sense of “savings is necessary!!” so we are mentally preparing.

Today I had the pleasure of typing up our move-out notice to our apartment complex. This was exciting for me. I’m not really sure why. Maybe because I’m hoping and praying we will never have to sign a LEASE again and therefore never need a sixty days notice.

8999999999999zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxuioxczd

I didn’t want to delete the above line because it was Scooter’s contribution to this blog. He LOVES laying across my lap, arms, belly and often walking across the keys.

Okay, onto the recent events of our house!!

I drive by our lot every day. One day last week I drove by and realized two men standing in a ditch on our lot. Wait… a ditch?!?! We have ditches!! We have pipes in ditches. Everything happened so fast!

pipes!!!

I called Will quickly and since he was in a meeting at work… I called four more times then gave up.

Other lots have had held this status for a few weeks before foundations or anything else was completed. So it may stay like this for a while but we’re still excited about it all.

Will checking things out officially

They say we are currently scheduled for a “beginning of September” closing date.

I’ll update you again next week!

Will and I went to Chili’s for dinner this evening(surprise, surprise). On our way home we both jokingly said, “let’s go see if our house is built yet!” So we “disagreed” for a quick minute on the quickest way to our house from where we were.  But when we arrived I gasped with joy… something had changed!!

Boards are currently on our lot, kind of outlining the building. I hopped out of the car and immediately got frustrated because there is a thin yellow string at waist-height blocking anyone from walking onto the “building”. So I did my best at taking a few pictures from where I could.

Trash on our lot... a broken vacuum cleaner.

Did I mention we have had a broken vacuum cleaner in the makeshift trash bin on our lot? It’s been there for about one week… maybe more. There used to be a bookshelf in there with the vacuum but I guess someone took it back. Strange.

Can you tell we’re excited?!

That’s about it for now. I wish we had more news but we’re holding our breath that things will be ready in August or later.

I’ll let you know when something else happens.

Throughout the process of choosing what we want in our home we have heard the word “upgrade” more than I ever imagined we would. We quickly found out that almost every little thing is an upgrade. But thankfully we could afford a few of them. We will have a fireplace downstairs in the living room, a powder room downstairs so not everyone will have to go upstairs to use the restroom, and we added pretty cabinets in our laundry room. The last one I’m particularly excited about. We added a nice carpet pad for the whole house, upgraded vinyl flooring for the upstairs bathrooms and laundry room, and marble countertops upstairs instead of laminate. We completely understand that none of these things are necessary and we are spoiling ourselves a bit… but we’re really just considering the resale value of our house.

Surprisingly we haven’t regretted any decision yet! Here are some photos of our countertops for the kitchen with its flooring option we chose, and the bathroom countertops and flooring too.

Kitchen Countertop and Cabinets

Kitchen, Powder Room, Entry Floor

Bathroom Cabinets, countertops, floors

Notice that the squares of the bathroom floors are bigger, they actually look like real tile… real fancy stuff!

So, we’re waiting for them to break ground over at our house. So far there has been no action. Just a bunch of mud puddles because of all the rain we’ve gotten lately. I promise we’ll let you know as soon as they move the porta-john from our building and start working on it.

Now that the bill has been signed and it is a law, we can all try to get a little bit of the stimulus package. (Or whatever you want to call it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and most say this package will not help. I agree.) However, there is one piece of the package BA and I can get a hold of is the New Home-Buyer Tax Credit. This credit applies to first time home buyers and according to the IRS Website you can claim this on your 2008 return. There are two ways to do this if you are buying your home before December 1, 2009 and after April 15th 2009.

1. File for an extension, then file Form 5405 with your 1040 by Oct. 15 2009.

2. File an amended tax form to claim the credit.

When you look at the name “New Home-Buyer Tax Credit” you think that you are getting money to help you purchase a home. WRONG! After talking to some IRS representatives on the phone, I found out you cannot claim this tax credit until you have purchased the home. So it’s more like a “New Home-OWNER Tax Credit.”

Where are most people going to want this money from the credit? At the Closing Table!

If you were like me and had your hopes up to use this money to help with upgrades or to put more down on your home, I’m sorry but you cannot file for the tax credit until you have started living in the home.

What does this mean for BA and myself? We have to wait until after we move in to do certain upgrades to the home including hardwood floors. Nothing like making the builder put something there like carpet just for us to rip it out. I think its a waste of resources, but there is no other way. The builder will not put in the hardwoods and allow us to pay later. This also means we can’t put more money down, therefore our monthly payment will be more.

All in all, it will be great to have the $8,000, but it stinks that we cannot claim it until we have already closed and moved into the home.

Here are some IRS links…

Form 5405

IRS News

Well, we’ve actually become adults. In a process that seemed to happen almost over night, we have signed a contract for a townhouse in Amberly. My M.O.H. Austin found out about this development on New Year’s Day and quickly emailed me the info. Being a national holiday, the sales center was closed. But that didn’t stop us from walking around homes still being built to get a sense of the space and the floorplans. The next day, January 2nd, on my way to the airport for a flight to Florida I stopped by our future homesite and got a tour of the model home. I immediately fell in love with the layout and the style of the homes. Eventually Will and I both went back and got more info.

We prayed about it, found out the financial possibilities, and when it seemed possible we jumped. The contract was signed on Thursday February 12, 2009! I was actually able to place the little red pin on the lot number signifying it was sold. Aaaah!

We are going with BB&T for our lender because they have an amazing “Chip Program” which means 100% financing and no PMI!!! I’m sure challenges will come but so far everything has been pretty smooth.

Our first meeting with the KB Design studio is Thursday, March 5. This is when we will pick out all the details of our home including cabinets, floors, paint, door knobs, sinks, faucets, garbage disposals, exhaust fans, appliances, countertops, fireplace surround, electrical outlets, cable outlets, mirrors, tubs, toilets, water heater, doors, blinds and things like that.

We’re super excited about the whole process and we’re looking forward to living in a place of our own. Our supposed closing date will be some time in August… so we have quite a while without much action. We will be posting photos as things are being built… right now our house is just a plot of dirt. Thanks for checking in!