Back to the Golf Course

We met Chris and looked through a couple of houses at Eagle Glen over my lunch break today. One of them was the house we drove by the other day, which backs up to woods. The other one overlooks the first hole of the golf course.

The second one had a rather significant error in the listing, which indicated the master bedroom was on the main floor. It turns out it was on the upstairs floor with all the rest. Not a complete show-stopper; just not what we want. Then we discovered that the washer and dryer are in the basement. No deal. There was very little about it we liked actually, though the view out the back isn't bad.

The first one could contend. It would require a lot of work to get it where we'd be comfortable, and even then it would definitely be a compromise. We'd have to turn the office/bedroom into a closet to have the space we'd need. The screened in porch looks like it was supposed to be a three season room that was aborted, ultimately making it a terrible screened porch. Of course virtually all of the decor in every house we look at would have to go. Yuck! This one is no exception.

So....at the end of the day today we're still thinking build, depending on how much it's really going to cost, which we can't determine until we have plans from Nicole that are close. She supposedly has a rough draft ready for us. So we need to get that and go over it. Hopefully we'll soon be talking to the builder about it.

House Photography

Several months ago I began taking photographs of our house in anticipation of putting it up for sale this summer. On web listings it's easy to show many photos, but there's always one, main photo associated with each listing on search results, and of course only one photo can be used with any paper based listing.

I knew it might be tricky getting one good photo so I wanted to make sure I took pictures before everything grew out, and during the blooming season so we could choose the best ones when the time came. I was somewhat scientific about it. I marked off spots on the sidewalk across the street where I’d place the tripod so I could be consistent, thinking I might use Photoshop to merge a couple of shots together later. I bracketed the exposures, shot at different angles, distances and zoom settings. I shot on days with various lighting and weather conditions as well. Normally subjects like this look a lot better when the sky is blue and the sun is overhead or behind the camera. Given the orientation of the house that angle isn’t possible, and when the sun is out strong there are shadows on the front of the house, so I may have to end up in Photoshop bring those shadows out. Or I may have to end up using a shot from an overcast day and then placing a better looking sky into it, which will not be easy since I have to work around at least one tree with sky in the background. I find it strange how little attention seems to be paid to this sort of thing in some of the house listings I see. Sometimes an expensive house will be shown with a crummy little snapshot and an overcast sky in the background.

At any rate I now have lot of pics of the front of the house, nearly all of which don’t show it effectively. It’s a hard house to shoot because a tree obscures the area around the front door, one of the main points of interest in any house, unless the photo is taken at an angle that obscures other areas of interest. There’s just no way to get one, good shot of the whole front.

Shot in late April -- Unacceptable because of overcast sky and the tree has no growth on it. Part of it could be used.

Shot late May -- Unacceptable because blooms make it look like spring, and the left tree obscures the nicest looking part of the front of the house.

Shot late June -- Unacceptable because front is lost in shadows (can be fixed) and right tree obscures the doorway.

Of course as I set about reviewing some of the photos later, with an eye toward possibly using the best parts of shots from different times, Liane tells me that I don’t want to use any of the shots with blooms in them because that connotes that it’s spring, and if we put the house up for sale in the late summer (which is likely the soonest it will happen) photos with blooms in them will make it seem like it has been on the market a long time already. Sigh. I tried to resist asking why she let me take all those photos in the first place, but couldn’t. Needless to say a minor argument over who said what to whom when ensued.

Currently the plan is to trim the tress and try it again. Hopefully I'll be able to piece enough parts together to come up with something acceptable.

Another Contender?

We headed up to Warsaw Sunday to visit some friends and along the way decided to stop by Eagle Glen to drive by a couple of houses that have potential (on paper at least). We'll probably end up scheduling a showing on them to see what they're really all about. The drive by was pretty inconclusive, as usual. I really wish people would take the time to put floor plans on line. It would help us not waste their time looking at houses that we know aren't going to work. You can get a lot out of the photos on line, but the added dimension of being able to clearly see how it all connects together and flows would make a big difference.

Here is one of them.

It doesn't look that much different from what we have from the street, but there is a lot more to it (including the required walk out basement, a screened in porch, etc.). It backs up to woods, which is nice. It seems like the price is right, but as with most it will likely end up being a pretty significant compromise from what we really want.

I think it's going to be hard to be very grounded in assessing these houses until we have a more concrete idea what it's going to cost to build what we really want. Nicole is working on draft #2.

A Good Idea

We continue to look at houses available for sale in hopes that we may find one with the right combination of features, location and price that’s suitable for us. I’m not optimistic about our chances for success. There are probably more farms than single-family houses in the area where we’re looking. It’s also important to keep looking as part of our research in thinking about what we want to build.

A couple of weeks ago we saw a house that had an HVAC vent that blended into the wood floor very effectively. Once you see things like this they become obvious. I don’t know that I would have thought to ask about such a thing before seeing it though.

This same house had another feature (not pictured) that intrigued me. The steps down to the basement were in the middle of a floor, rather than up against a wall as in most houses. So effectively there was just a hole in the floor with a railing around it, and the steps descended below. It struck me as different and cool. If we end up not having an upstairs on our house I would very much like to build the steps this way, which is how Nicole set it up on her initial draft. We may even be able to leave them mostly open if there’s also a flight to an upstairs. We’ll see.

The Cast of Characters So Far

Now that this thing is starting to take shape it might be a good idea to begin establishing who else is involved.

David & Liane Stewart - Us

Nicole – Our friend, the drafter, who works part time for a builder called Windsor Homes. Nicole is taking our raw wants and wishes and turning them into a workable set of prints.

Jim – Nicole’s husband and a great handy man. He’s bound to figure in to the story eventually.

Chris – Our realtor, if we have a realtor. It remains to be determined whether it’s really necessary to use one if we end up building. He’s already been pretty helpful though, so one way or the other we’ll make sure he gets paid. Most definitely I would use him in selling our current house. He works for Mike Thomas Realty.

Rob – Another contact at Windsor Homes, a reputable builder we may use.

Felicia – Our friend who at times seems to live and breathe houses, decorating, and staging. She does have a great eye for it and isn’t short on opinions. I expect she will figure prominently in getting our house ready for sale and probably in decorating the new one.

We’ve already lined up a nice network of help, and we’re sure gonna’ need it.

Staffing

Sunday we went to look at a model home that both Nicole (who designed it) and Chris (our realtor) thought would be good for us to see based on the style of house we want to build. They came up with the suggestion of this specific house independently of one another, claiming it had several characteristics on our list of wants. So we trucked all the way up north in what was close to a 30 minute drive. Having grown up in Louisville I know that 30 minutes doesn't seem like much of a drive to people who live in larger cities, but in Fort Wayne it's an epic journey. Perspectives change. When I first moved here I remember a lady in a store telling me where I could find something I was looking for and she said, "...but that's all the way across town." Well, all the way across town amounted to maybe 25 minutes, which to me was nothing back then. Now a drive of 25 or 30 minutes feels like a journey to Mecca or something.

Liane confirmed (via their website) the hours it would be open on Sunday and we drove all the way up to the very nice, new addition to find it. We found it with a note on the door informing us that nobody would be there due to "staffing." Evidently they don't have enough staffing to keep someone in their model while it is "open" or they don't have enough to have someone update their listing on their website.

So we walked around the house looking in through the windows. It occurred to me at this point that we might look rather suspicious. Nicole had told us that the house recently had a break in and many items were stolen. Here we are walking around looking in windows. I guess a trip downtown for questioning would have added a bit more intrigue to an otherwise (nearly) wasted trip. Actually we were able to see some of what they were talking about looking in from the outside so it wasn't a complete waste.

This is the only decent picture I could get looking through the windows. The great room isn't one of the parts that's most applicable to us though.

First Draft

We met with Nicole again a couple of evenings ago to check out her first draft of a possible floor plan. She had told us she was just going to do a rough sketch, however she showed up with a pretty complete set of drawings (the main floor is pictured here).

There are actually quite a few significant changes we need to make so this isn't really what it's going to end up looking like, though the basic vibe is pretty close. There are still a number of things undetermined too. For instance, we can put a loft on it (in addition to the aforementioned walk out basement). We kind of want to because getting up high is about the only way to get a good view of the lake and other surroundings, but....cha-ching, I can hear the money sucking already.

Topo

We have obtained a copy of the topographic study that was done on the property. Ours would be lot #6.

All of these symbols and squiggly lines presumably spell it all out for someone who knows how to read it. I get the basics. The highest point on our lot would be 840.2 feet above sea level, whereas the lowest point would be 818.8. The two small round circles at LT 6-3 and LT 6-4 show where the septic and well soil samples were supposedly taken.

You're Under the Soil

Yes, deep in the soil (the soil, the soil, the soil)

-- Peter Gabriel

A few days ago Liane began some initial investigations of the soil and other suitability issues pertaining to the property at Lake Trail Estates.

The property was purchased a few years ago by a woman who later decided to purchase a house elsewhere. It has been for sale since then. A builder's representative Liane had check out the site for us advised her to go to the Whitely County Surveyors Office and the Health Department to try to find out whether they may have the proper soil samples and knowledge of what the property was before development. These factors have implication for the required septic system and for general drainage issues.

Of course it was a goose chase for her to figure all this out. She initially went to the Court House, only after getting all the way through security she figured out the Health Department wasn't in the building. The security guard pointed the correct building out to her, only once she got there it turned out that wasn't the correct building either. Ultimately she learned that the soil is approved for a septic system and well. In fact, because of the sand content it looks like we can save some money on these, although there is a foreboding concern that this same high sand content may cause considerable complications to construction. We'll see.

She then went to the Building Department to investigate whether any samples had been taken for buildability. None have been taken. But they did offer up the names and numbers for the owners and builders of the lots on either side of this property. So much for privacy, eh? She got them to check with the building inspector to see whether they know anything.

You know it's a small town when...The building department lady later tracked her down at the Surveyor's Office after having reached the building inspector. Turns out the lot is mostly sandy and gravely, which probably will complicate the construction process. The only thing useful garnered at the Surveyor's Office was more information on the developer and Surveyor who initially did the work.

Later, after contacting the realtor to see if he could get anything out of the current owner she got the following response:

"The buyer really didn't do her homework before buying this lot. Here is her response:

'We did not test for anything. The only tests done were done before us, and
I'm sorry I don't know much about all that stuff because we never got that
far. The Board of Health gave me everything they had on it, so if it's not
in there, and I'm sure it wasn't done. Dick Watson had all of those lots
listed with the developer so you could ask him; he might know OR I'll call
him if you want. Just let me k now. (the developer has since passed away)'"

Looks like we'll have to start over...

Money

About a week ago we had an appointment at our local Chase Bank branch to talk about getting money. I’m already approved (without counting Liane’s income) for a good amount through Bank of America, who holds my current Fort Wayne mortgage, but that amount won’t pay for the build, so if we go that route I’ll have to get approved for more. The Chase meeting was to serve a couple of purposes:

1) To see how much money we could really get.

2) To learn more about how the process works when building.

#1 was easy. They are willing to loan us quite a bit more money than I think would be prudent. Haven’t the banks learned anything? No problem for us. The money seems to be available and we certainly have enough common sense to know what we can realistically handle…assuming there is no major upheaval in our lives, which is a fear that always lives in the back of my mind.

We also got a lot of answers on #2. We learned about how builders can take multiple draws over the course of the project, about how buying the land outright can serve as a down payment, etc. Most of it put our minds at ease about the process, but there are lingering concerns. Is the land really suitable for building? With money anything can be made to work of course. We just need to know all the particulars going in. They recommended we get some people out to look at the property, do soil samples, etc.

Nicole has also expressed concern about the topography. It looks to her like drainage may be an issue. We still have a lot to learn…

Building Costs More...

I’ve mentioned before that relatively speaking building costs more than buying, especially in a buyers market like what we have now. While some of the raw building materials and labor have gone down in price with the economy, it still costs a lot to build a house. No contractor in his right mind would do it at a loss so if one can find a deal on a house for sale – perhaps at a loss – it’s sure to be the better value overall. We just can’t find one we like enough. Of course the fact that the area we want to locate to is primarily made up of corn fields has a lot to do with our lack of success.

Building costs more….this fact just keeps nagging at me.

“So what if building costs more?” I think out loud to myself. "If I can afford it, why not? What am I going to do with money anyway, continue putting it in the banks and investments? Well, those institutions have certainly showed us what they’re made of. Maybe I should enjoy what little money I have rather than letting others use it to get rich at my expense." A bit cynical there, but when you watch everything you’ve diligently saved for the past 15 years be taken away it can’t help but to produce at least a little distrust.

Well, how much more does it cost? We don’t know yet. We need to get sketches from Nicole, refine the design, which I’m sure will be a many step process, then get her to draw up plans, and then get bids. Up to that point it’s all guessing.

Meeting with Nicole

Last week we had our good friend Nicole over for dinner and to discuss ideas. We met Nicole years ago when Liane was an administrative person at an architectural firm where Nicole was a drafter. She and her husband Jim, who is a GREAT handyman, fix it, built it type of guy, have been good friends ever since. I’ve seen enough of her work to know she’s good at it. More importantly, I trust her. We’ve talked to her on and off over the past couple of years about this idea of building, and getting her to lay out the plans should we ever do it. She believes she can take all of our wants and wishes and come up with something that will work, and be feasible. We met with her over lunch a few weeks ago and discussed some of the big ideas, but this meeting was to really get down to specifics. She left with a long list of wants and needs, and even notes on things where Liane and I don’t quite agree. It will be interesting to see how she reconciles some of that.

The dynamic of reaching an agreement amongst two opinionated people has proven interesting so far. We both know the significance of this undertaking, and we both know the decisions we make will for all practical purposes be permanent, so the stakes are rather high. While we have a variety of specific wants, there are a few things each of us feels very strongly about, and in some cases those things are at odds with one another. A real estate agent we met with a few days ago told us he’s seen people wind up getting divorced during the process of buying or (mostly) building a house. Yikes! The trick, for now, has been to not follow every possible scenario all the way down the rabbit hole. We’re just taking things one step at a time and feeling the whole process out as we go. As things get gradually more specific and concrete I am hopeful that good judgment will prevail and the correct decisions will be made.

Haven’t ruled out just buying a place yet…if we can find one.

Property

Liane has been searching for houses and potential property upon which we might build. The Eagle Glen addition mentioned previously is a contender, and recently we found a nice, 2.9 acre lot in an addition called Lake Trail Estates, which is about half way between Sweetwter and Columbia City. We don’t need anywhere near 2.9 acres – I can see me in a riding lawn mower already – but it is a decent lot with a view to a small lake off the back. It features a topography that looks like it could work well with a walk out basement, which is something we really want (more on that later), and the small neighborhood it’s in looks like a nice place to live.

We’ve looked at a few pieces of property that have potential and many that do not. It’s very hard to visualize what a house would look like on some of them. Then, of course, there is the anxiety about what we don’t know. A mentor of mine used to say, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” He didn’t mean it to state the obvious. His point was that there are many things you know, and many things you know you do not know, but the dangerous things are the things you don’t know you don’t know…if that makes any sense… We have a lot to learn and understand before we proceed. For now we’re just looking.

Why build?

From the beginning the idea of building a house has been on the table. This is probably the only way we’ll get something very close to what we really want in a house. Of course…the cost of building is substantial, not to mention the hassle. Everyone I’ve ever known who has built their own house has told me what an unbelievable pain in the ass it is. It doesn’t exactly sell one on the idea, however, the more we look at the inventory that’s available the more we keep getting pushed down that path.

We have seen a few decent places, but there’s always that one thing that sort of screws them up for us. One of the first days we seriously looked we saw a nice house in a really nice area in Columbia City. Most of the attributes were close enough to be workable, and the price was right. It was marked way down because the people had already moved and the new job one of them got was going to cover the short sale of the house. But the one big snafu for us was the master bedroom closet was much too small. Just not usable at all in my opinion, and the way the house was laid out there just wasn’t any way to fix this. We thought about making an offer, but we had just begun looking and felt we could find something more to our liking. It sold a few days later.

There’s another good one available now in a nice neighborhood.

Most of the rooms are configured in a way we like, or at least in a way that with some construction would be workable, and it backs up to a nice pond with a walk out basement. Very nice. The problem is it’s located close enough to where we live now that it would only shave 10 minutes off of Liane’s drive time. Hardly seems worth it, even though it’s a short sale and a really great price. We haven’t written it off.

It always seems like it’s just that one thing that kills some of them for us, which keeps pushing us back toward building.

I’ve been reluctant to push down the building path because it seems like it would be so much more expensive given the current housing market “in these economic times.” (Boy, there is a phrase I am really sick of hearing.) While house prices may be depressed, the cost of building one is what it is. Nobody is going to take a loss on building a house, so relatively speaking you’d think it would cost a lot more to do that right now. But it doesn’t seem like house prices are all that depressed in the FW area. My experience has been that Fort Wayne doesn’t seem to boom or bust like a lot of the rest of the country. Everything stays about the same. The house I live in has hardly appreciated in value over the last 14 years. There are a few houses that are in duress for one reason or another, so there are a few good deals out there, but for the most part I have not been impressed with the pricing…again pushing us toward building our own.

What could be between Fort Wayne and Warsaw?

Columbia City is a town that is about at the midpoint.

Map showing Warsaw Community High School on the left, Sweetwater on the right, and Columbia City in between.

It’s a very small town, though it is at least big enough to have a real courthouse and town square, rather than just a short strip of shops, as is the case with many rural Indiana “towns.” Still, I wouldn’t consider it much of a destination. It seems like a dumpy little town without much happening. Funny, when I mentioned the possibility of moving there to Chuck (president, owner and founder of Sweetwater) one day, his reaction was a sort of, “eeeww.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that many people feel this same way about his hometown of Fort Wayne. It’s all relative I guess. I'm sure there is more to it than meets the naked eye.

We’ve looked in a few areas around Columbia City, but so far it seems that the selection of nice areas – places I would really want to live – is very limited. And within those few places finding a house that meets the rather specific criteria we’ve set for our new place is quite challenging.

We saw a nice place in a subdivision called Eagle Glen, which features the Eagle Glen Golf Club. It’s one of those golf courses built within a neighborhood, something I’ve always felt is kinda’ weird. It’s a nice area. I don’t play golf though, and I don’t really like golf. I love sports, just not golf. Nevertheless I can see that in 10 years or so it will probably be one of the few sports I will still be able to do, so maybe I better learn it. Anyway, the place wasn't quite suited for us so we passed. The subdivision has potential though.

We’re continuing to look. In fact, our search encompasses everything between County Line Road, on the western outskirts of Fort Wayne, all the way up to and through Columbia City. That’s an 18-mile span, but of course this is Indiana so the vast majority of it is farms. If you like corn this is a great place to be, but I doubt Bill Maher would be paying us a visit anytime soon.

So We're Moving to Warsaw?!

No. Warsaw is actually a nice town. You wouldn’t think it. I mean…it’s not quite half way between Fort Wayne and Chicago, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But it just so happens that Warsaw is considered the orthopedic capital of the world. The first ever orthopedic company, DePuy, began operations there back in 1895 making mesh and wooden splints. Justin Zimmer, who was the sales person, split off in 1905 and formed his own company (Zimmer Manufacturing) doing the same. Since then a number of other competitive and support type companies have sprung up nearby. Most of these are now huge corporations and drive the economy of the area, though there are now a number of other industries around town that take advantage of some of the infrastructure that sprang up from the orthopedics. Needless to say there are employees at nearly all salary ranges, though given the nature of what they’re doing there certainly are more than a few highly paid professionals. Consequently it’s a pretty nice town with some very nice areas.

Warsaw Court House

As much as we may like Warsaw, moving there doesn’t make sense because it would just put me an hour away from my job at Sweetwater. So we’re now embarking on this process of finding a place in between Warsaw and Fort Wayne, where we can both have reasonable drives to and from work.

Back Story

7/5/09

As we embark on this journey we’re actually picking up at the end of what has been quite a long journey: Liane is now officially under contract as a school teacher (well, the contract actually hasn’t been delivered yet, but it’s as good as done). I’ve been shocked at how long and difficult the process has been. I still remain frustratingly amused at how they (the university -- IPFW) gladly accepted our money for the classes, but then became unable to deliver on some of the critical ones at the end, and then didn’t have a spot available for student teaching, as if it was a surprise that after five years in the course the person trying to obtain a teaching certificate actually needed to fulfill their requirements by getting a student teaching spot. Maybe that’s how they weed out the ones who aren’t truly devoted to it.

So she’s gone through one extra year of school to work out scheduling and availability issues with classes and student teaching. And as it turns out that was the easy part. There aren’t many jobs, especially in Social Studies. The state of Indiana has been pretty much broke for the last several years so all we hear about are teachers getting laid off, etc. On rare occasions jobs would surface, but very often she’d get no response whatsoever to inquiries (appallingly unprofessional). On one occasion she was told her application was one of roughly 400 to apply, most of whom were out of work teachers with much more experience. In order to be gainfully (and I use the term “gainfully” loosely here) employed she became a substitute teacher for a year, and then she obtained a full time teaching job in a town over two hours away, which required her to have a separate residence in which to stay during the week.

Finally last year she obtained a job at a school just under an hour away from us, in Warsaw, IN. After the initial interview the principle of the school asked her how it was that someone with her credentials was still on the market. Our thoughts exactly. I think there’s some potential commentary here on the state of education in this country, but that isn’t what this blog is about.

She got the job. Technically it was a temporary position due to some internal shuffling of positions they were working out. Initially we considered this just another step in the process of acquiring a job here in town (Fort Wayne), but she liked the school and the town enough to consider making it permanent, if they could work out a way to keep her. They really liked her and for the past few months had been trying to formulate a strategy that would keep her on board. It’s all very complicated with budgets and other teachers (who have seniority) moving around. Many times the teaching staff at schools isn’t completely firmed up until a few days before school starts. Crazy.

Ultimately it all worked out, although she’s mostly going to be teaching English (not her first choice), which requires that she finish her English minor at school. She’s been working on that over the summer.

First Entry

Just a quick test to see if things are working.