It's been awhile since we did an update on the house project. While it does appear that all we do is ride bikes and hike mountains, we are still building a house. :-)

Well, today we got some good news!

Our property is located in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association. As with many HOA's you have to submit your building documents to the architectural review committee for approval.

Thankfully, our new neighborhood has relatively simple and reasonable guidelines to follow. I recall during our property search looking at a neighbhoold that was governed by a 90 page document! Hard pass on that one.

Three weeks ago we submitted our home design, structural drawings, elevation information, exterior finishes, exterior lighting, and the interior floor plan for the committee's review.

Prior to the submission, Kelsey worked hard to get everything ready to share with them. His geology and mapping background came in handy when we were surveying to figure out the site topography, foundation, floor, roof elevations, and creating the site plan which includes: build locations and setbacks, driveway profile, site grading and drainage. His willingness to just figure things out helped get the house model finalized. He's so amazing a tackling a project head on and never gives up. I know that our family is in excellent hands with Kelsey at the lead.

We've been waiting patiently (sorta) to hear back from the HOA. We elected to take a few liberties with the guidelines (roof pitch primarily) and were concerned that we would have to alter the design of the roof which would have meant sending the plans back to the structural engineer and enduring some delays.

You're probably already seeing where this is going....but...THE HOA APPROVED OUR DESIGN!

Yes...all caps was necessary for that one.

We are so excited that we get to keep the initial design of the home (see this previous post) to have the efficient and modern home we have been dreaming of. We'll share some of the updates to the design in a later post, but the general idea remains the same.

While we've been waiting for approval, Kelsey has been working on lining up some potential subcontractors, finalizing the types of windows we will have, and working out some minor changes/edits to the structural drawings.

Now, we'll get all the documents submitted to the building department on Monday to start the permitting process. We have some folks ready to help with the excavating process, so the plan remains to break ground this month.

So much more to come and so much work to be done.

But, needless to say, we're thrilled with this positive forward progress and treated ourselves to happy hour at the Tiki Bar tonight. Mojito for Mama, beer for Dad, and the boys shared a virgin daiquiri.

We hope you got some good news on this Friday too!

Raising a glass,
Cory & Kelsey

Friday Happy Hour at Pug Ryan's Tiki Bar in Dillon.