Everything is Starting to Get Surreal

2 months ago, as we are finalizing everything, as things would break around the house, we’d say “Oh well, I guess we need to knockdown the house.”  As in, “The hinge to the back gate has come undone.” or “The screen door is starting to rip.”  No matter what, “Oh well, I guess we need [...]

Somehow, We’ve Got to Pay For This Project

Wow, that is an ugly image, but you get the idea.  We’ve got our financing lined up now and are going through the document signing process.
I probably called a dozen or so banks during this process and have a very detailed understanding of the types of loan products that are available through all of them.  [...]

It’s Official

We are now officially building a house. Let me rephrase, we are almost officially building a house. We have our contractor lined up and we are signing our loan docs, so we are 90% officially building a house.
We chose to go with Craig Rogers Construction. If you aren’t in the San Jose area (or [...]

Where Are You Going To Live?

When you tell people that you are going to knock down 90% of your house and move out for 7 months, you’d expect them to say something like ‘Wow, that sounds really exciting!’ or ‘Boy, that is going to suck.’  Invariably, the first question that anyone asks is ‘Where are you going to live?’ Like [...]

Many Tiny Steps Adds Up To A Marathon

Undergoing a project like this is akin, I suspect (because I’m lazy and don’t really know), to running a marathon.  There is tons of preparation, often there are setbacks and ultimately each step adds up to 26.2 miles.
Like a lot of sales people, I’ve married way out of my league.  My wife has been awesome [...]

Plans Out of the City

Yeaaaaay!!!!
Except it came about 4 weeks early.  We have been kind of caught with our pants down a bit since we don’t have financing lined up yet nor have we finalized on a contractor.  But our plans are ready to be picked up.
Probably this week, we will resolve the above.  We’ve narrowed our contractor down [...]