Progress...

We've been back in OK since the end of September, life has kept us busy but we're making progress we should document.

The task at hand is excavation (or dirt work as they call it here), and site preparation.  Our land while beautiful, sits low relative to the water table and requires some thoughtful planning to insure a successful project.

We need to put in an access road/driveway, clear the area for our house pad, and we're planning a pond.  We have settled on a company to handle this work for us and they have flagged the route through our property, outlined the house pad (80x70), outlined the pond, and outlined parking for Edward.  The access road will be about 16 foot wide, slightly wider at the street and will curve as you drive onto the property to maintain privacy for the house pad site.  The house pad is situated to allow the house to face South per the design.

While we've been working on the site preparation plans, our site planner has been making progress on our formal site plan for the city.  We hope to have that completed this month so we can submit it for approval and get over that hurdle, time will tell.

We'll try to post more frequently moving forward, or at least when anything major happens.

 

Welcome to Hazard County ;)

We need an access, and enough of a clearing for the house pad, well and septic installation, and the lateral lines for the septic system. $37,000 to clear and excavate our build site? We didn't move to Hazard, but we can see it from here, lol... In all seriousness, I'm sure its just par for the course when you're new in town and finding your way.

From Las Vegas, we started researching companies that do site prep work in the local area and came across company that quoted us $37k for what amounted to basic clearing and excavation. Given that the going rate for the equipment and personnel they were proposing is $85/hr, that’s a little over 10 weeks at 40 working hours per week. This to clear a short 16-18 foot wide path back to the pad site, and clear out approximately 1-1.5 acres of trees and brush.

Maybe we're missing something, or just don't understand exactly what their proposing, but everyone we have talked to since has said that that company saw us coming... from Las Vegas that is. To their credit, they did say they were "trying to get us some better pricing", but we still don't know how they arrived at $37k.

We have since met with 3 other reputable excavation and site preparation companies and we're making the rounds through their references. It looks like we've found our guys though, and if all their refs check out, we should be able to get things moving as soon as the rains stop and the ground dries out a bit.

We're flying back to Las Vegas for a couple of days this coming week, then off to Southern California for a couple of weeks of on-site work with clients. Hopefully the conditions will be right to get started upon our return.

We'll update on the process and progress as we go, stay tuned.

 

19 Minutes

We decided we needed some sleep; the drive has been taking a lot out of us. Between the yard sale, packing up the pods, and getting Edward ready to go the past week has been overwhelming. We were supposed to be out of Rothbury on Monday afternoon, instead the gracious new owners gave us until Wednesday morning. Thankfully, because Monday afternoon came and went without any hope of actually being completely out.

Wednesday morning when we got ready to hit the road; the left slide out room on Edward wouldn't retract. This means we were literally stuck parked in front of Rothbury until we could get a technician dispatched to fix the problem, or at least manually retract the slide - joy! Fortunately we agreed to the Coach Net package the dealer sold us back when we originally purchased our coach and a call to them got a mechanic sent out within 2 hours.

We had to agree to pay the service call fee plus whatever labor, but Coach Net will reimburse us for the service call costs. $200 and a few spays of WD40 and our slide was running better than ever, learn something new every day. From our perspective this was good news, it could have been much worst time and money wise, and after all it was Wednesday morning, we needed to be in Oklahoma for our closing at 10:30 AM on Friday.

So back to needing some sleep... Wifey was driving through a storm in Texas after midnight and decided when she got to the Oklahoma border to stop at the Welcome Center rest stop and get a few hours sleep, "one of us will wake up early", we should have plenty of time.

I woke up about 6:49 AM, I think, and realized that maybe we overslept a bit. We got going right away and arrived at the Title Company exactly 19 minutes before our scheduled closing time. By the time we took showers and got dressed, it was 4 minutes to our appointment.

Time to go sign for our property =) I'll post about the closing later.

 

Closure and Freedom

Today we closed on the sale of Rothbury, finally. In this market we're fortunate we were able to sell, thankful for the little things. We're still not completely packed, the theory was that we'd be all done and out by 5P. Guess that was wishful thinking, we'll see.

John, my nurse, came for his last in home visit this afternoon. Doc issued a DC order and I got my PIC line out today. FREEDOM! I had a lot of anxiety about the removal process, I don't really remember much about the insertion as I was under the influence of heavy medication and otherwise unbearable pain. John told me it wouldn't hurt, "the worst part will be taking off the tape", but somehow having a tube pulled through my vein seemed like it would at least be very uncomfortable. He was right, the tape removal was the worst part, the line came out without any discomfort though it was strange to watch :-/

 

Everything must go!

Ohanahaus is a new chapter; almost everything about it will be new. The place, the house itself, appliances, furniture... everything. Time to get rid of a bunch of stuff but how? Yard sale!

We've never had a yard sale, or any kind of sale for that matter, much less at our home. Wait, this isn't our home anymore right. Signs are not really our thing, and with the boy, advertising where you'll be sleeping didn't seem well advised. What to do, where will the buyers come from? Will anyone actually be interested? Craig's List!

We took a bunch of pictures of the items we wanted to sell, posted an ad omitting our address but leaving a phone number to call us for directions (a way of pre-screening people). Well it worked; we sold all the premium items, mostly to pre-qualified buyers on Saturday. Then Saturday night, knowing we'd moved into Edward safely away from the loonies, we posted the address for the Sunday blow out. Sunday from 9A to 1P the ad stated, call for information. At about 7A the calls started - we sold everything and then some =)

Met some cool people, and avoided transporting, storing, and paying to haul away a house full of stuff we no longer needed - with cash to boot! Time to call 1800gotjunk.

 

Pods are here

Moving is a pain, at least it is for us. Add to which I am not supposed to lift more than 10lbs - doctors orders, and you have the makings of a long weekend.

We've been in this house, Rothbury, for 6 years plus we have all the stuff we managed to move from the last few places we lived. U-Haul, been there done that... when we moved to Vegas we rented a truck, packed it up only to realize 10 minutes before U-Haul closed that we needed more space. A fast dash back to U-Haul, not really, we had to take the truck so we could get a trailer add on - saved the day, but no fun.

This time we decided to go with Pods, they drop containers right in front of your place, you load them up at your own pace, then they pick them up - easy enough. The Pods people store the containers in a secure facility until you are ready for them, then transport and deliver them directly to your new location - perfect for us.

All sorts of things fascinate kids, but I have to admit the Pods system is pretty cool to me too. What a good idea.

 

4 days down, 4 to go

This past Monday was the start of my first full week back at work after what can only be described as the most significant life changing experience I have ever been through... next to the birth of my boy, and marrying Rebe =)

This coming Monday is our last day at Rothbury. The end of an era, we say goodbye to 6 years in Las Vegas and head to Oklahoma to begin building our new home. There is much to say, much to share... alas time is short for the next few days. Stay tuned.