dapello-barbe

I have just had our final pre-construction meeting. Yipeeee! I sat down with Steve and Sandy (Steve is the construction superintendent, and Sandy is the sales agent from Yankee Barn who 'sold' us the house) around a big round table and went over all the nit picky details of the blueprints, also with you on the other end of the Web Cam, giving Steve all the information over the internet link. Odd thing was though, the blueprints weren't blue at all! In fact they were large white sheets with the drawings on them. We highlighted the specific features we had changed and other things which make our house unique from the "standard" Rutledge II floorplan. During the meeting we met Kurt, who is the developer's on site supervisor. When he saw what we were doing, he chided "They're probably pouring your footers right now." We all had a good chuckle at that, construction couldn't possibly start that fast could it?
The answer to that is YES! During our pre-construction meeting the backhoe was out at our site digging the trenches. We went to see just after the meeting, and they were just beginning the pouring of the footers. The footers are the basis of the foundation. Trenches are dug around the perimeter of the house, and in the interior where additional support is needed. Then the trenches are filled with about 16 inches of concrete. So here's a picture of the foundation of our house. The garage is on the right side, and the large concrete footer in the front will be where the front step are. For good luck (and a bit of personalization) we each threw a lucky penny into the foundation.
In another stroke of good luck for us, we found out at the pre-construction meeting that our lot slopes from front to back a good bit more than they originally anticipated. That means that the house cannot be built on a slab foundation. Uh-oh! Since the contract was already completed for a house on a slab foundation, they couldn't change the price on us, so we are getting a crawl space foundation for free. Talk about really cool for us! Now we can go back later and wire the living room for full THX digital theatre surround sound ouch(Kristi just flicked me in the back of the head...). Still a very lucky turn for us. The crawl space should help us with moisture and heating/cooling of the house.
Up next.... The laying of the foundation block.

Now we have “just” to build the house…

The plot itself is about 100 meters from the sea (a bit less I think). Although there is a house between us and the sea, we have a great sea view. The land is 5725 m2. It isn’t huge but big enough to build a nice house, grow some trees and even have a little garden.

The exposition is good, as the sea is east, and not north, which would have been bad. The south is nicely open, so we will have the sun. Opposite to the sea, west of the land, is a nice forest. Although not part of the land plot, the forest starts immediately behind it and we are confident that it will stay a forest and not become buildable land in the future. Currently there aren’t any new plots that are declared buildable in Viimsi, and now that we have a plot that’s a good thing.
What a weekend! Without surprise it was four busy days. I visited many plots and went through a lot of feelings. Two times I thought I had found something, but it wasn’t it.

So it went until Sunday afternoon and we were driving home, a bit discouraged. I just decided to stop seeing a plot we had seen before, and I discovered I hadn’t looked at it properly the first time. One must say the real-estate agent that showed it to us the first time wasn’t very good, while the second time we went there with Ira and Nat They are relatives of Ingrid and have built a few houses before.

They are of great help in this process, advising, negotiating with the real-estate agents, etc.And so I discovered that it was great place. Very well situated, a good price, a correct size, a sea view (yes!)… I signed the pre-agreement today and we are really happy! More on the land soon…