Dream house -Part 2 (2023) - CFDigital - The wonderful world of Leonard

Quick note to readers

Before I continue, I want to share that despite this being an exciting project, it’s not for everyone. Between the cash purchase for the land, permits, engineering drawings, well/septic designs, well installation, retainer for the home builder, electrical install, and other materials on this mostly DIY part, I’ve spent nearly nearly $200,000 cash. This is extremely capital intensive in the early phases. Furthermore, it can be extremely overwhelming understanding making the decisions required for a project like this, even if you have a great builder or agent you work with before you purchase anything. Anyway, on with the story.

A new year

The project started as a pole barn, but as the title indicates, that’s not what is happening now.

After a winter hiatus, we realized that looking to build the house in 3-5 years was probably too far away, so we decided to accelerate the timetable, by a lot. This was primarily driven by evaluating the direction of the housing market in my area(I would sell my home to help fund construction) and what I expected the broader markets would do. The timing felt right.

Knowing it would likely be over a year before we think of moving in, the process also began to determine garden elements to ensure we had a more productive and mature garden by move in, and starting the home building process.

Selecting a home

You can’t build without a design. Cookie cutter houses are ugly and we wanted something that made us happy and excited to picture ourselves in. We opted to scour the internet for what felt like forever until we found a plan that was nearly perfect, vs hiring an architect. Like the land purchase, we had strict criteria:

2,300 – 2,600 sq’
Two car garage
Pantry
Modern/Contemporary theme
Minimal home footprint(1.5 -2 story)
Master suite on main floor
Two dedicated office rooms, with room for two guest rooms
Vaulted ceilings
Open plan; minimal hallways
No dead-end or void areas
All rooms, including bathrooms have natural light

The chosen plan after careful selections and comparisons can be found here. We purchased the plan with the associated engineering calculations as required by my state.

Choosing a builder

This was harder than it should be. After speaking with over a dozen builders, only one actually seemed interested in my project. Digging into their background yielded nothing of concern(I did see the rantings of a seemingly unhinged person trying to discredit them with weird claims, but I saw through that) so now it’s go time. Let’s start material selection for big ticket items and getting a bid and the process which spans months.

More site work

With a builder secure, and the barn on pause, I still needed to get vehicles in there, even if I did not plan to build the barn. I could not safely continue clearing to avoid possible issues with regulatory bodies.

Accessibility

Bamboo screen wall on property edge is in, purchased from Bamboo Garden near Portland, OR. There’s nothing on the other side, but I’m future proofing.

Making a muddy mess less muddy. I can’t have a river crossing the driveway.

Silt screen in place. Not much to look at, but since I’m doing stuff, it’s required.

Driveability increasing.

By this time, I’ve gone through 5 yards of riprap, 10 yards of 1 1/4″ minus basalt, and 30 yards of 1 1/2″ clean basalt, delivered by a local gravel/landscaping company.

New terrain

To date, all work has been done in a very small area of the property, but there remains about 6.5 acres I can’t access with the tractor due to the wetlands and a drainage course bisecting the property. I found a large blackberry thicket was at one point was clear and appears to be a prime candidate for an additional garden area.

Bought a 12″x20′ culvert from Lowe’s and cut it in half, should be plenty big to allow the water to pass in the drainage course.

The freshly brush-hogged area. 100% hidden from the house site.

Back to work

The newly area dubbed “The Secret Garden”(not a movie reference) is not visible from the home site. I need to let the ground dry to avoid disrupting the soils too much more in that area for the time being.

I’ve got as much done as I can do for the driveway at this time without an excavator to remove the “s” bend for the well trucks and other blocking stumps. Drainage is mostly done, it just looks like crap until things dry out.

Restoring the terrain. More to do, but it’s a start

My Toaster can now drive down there! The drive is not awesome yet, but it’s possible.

Electricity

I actually started this process in Nov 2022. In May 2023, it was finally done – temporary power is live. Total cost was under $6,000 as the utility company was able to run a line extension from a nearby vault on my neighbors’ property. I bought and assembled the mater base myself in an afternoon. Supposedly I saved a few thousand on this project which is not typically DIY.

Plan created by utility company.

Assembled meter base. Built at home to move later.

Nothing fancy, just 2x20A GFCI

Poor man’s trenching. The water table was rather high and the hydric soils were heavy. I managed to get the tractor stuck for 45 minutes.

Installed meter base, pending L&I inspection.

Electrical install was uneventful, I improperly used Al instead of Cu for the ground, which had to be corrected. Other than that, I was good to go and the utility company completed their work.

Well and Septic Designs

I’ve gotten a lot done, but no more clearing of land anymore until more permits are issued. But that’s fine because…

…Now the design and permitting process really starts to take off. No construction just yet. A designer had actually been out the month before to excavate test pits. At this phase, I have a site plan with utilities, with permits submitted on 05/08/2023 to the county health department.

Plan by the designer with well and septic.

With the locations all marked on the property, I meet with the drilling company and get on the wait list, get a contract signed, pay a deposit and.. wait.

Site plan creation

Due to the length of the driveway creating over 5,000 sq’ of impervious surfaces, I need to have a civil engineer create the site plan with a drainage control plan to meet state requirements.

After two weeks, I had a site plan in hand!

Well Road

In mid July, we had a well road constructed. The pitiful driveway approach I made was widened and a 15′ road/driveway capable of supporting the 40,000lb well trucks was installed. This included clearing a large 100×100′ area surrounding the well site. We can now drive any vehicle down to the site without getting stuck in the mud.