It's been a crazy month here. We have been working since Labor day to get started with the addition for my mom. While we have felt fairly confident that we've been following the path God wants for our family, we kept running into one road block after another. The decision of how to make a full apartment for her come to fruition has been far more complicated that we could have ever imagined. Our initial thoughts were to add something off our current laundry/utility room. However, when the numbers came back it was far more than we were comfortable with. We also had the option to convert our current garage and put a new detached garage elsewhere on the property, but of course, I wasn't too keen on that one. I've never seen a converted garage look like it wasn't a converted garage.
Since this didn't feel quite right, we went back to the drawing board and cut the apartment down to 500 square feet to see if that would lower costs. It did! However, issues came up with the current septic system that will need to be replaced, regardless of which option we end up with. It all has to do with location, location, location....and of course, the location was not ideal in any scenario we looked at.
We tried putting the apartment off the back of the house, but encountered costly drainage issues.
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| Who knew this slight hill would cost thousands to remedy to allow for Pam's Place to go here. |
We tried putting it off the utility room again, but encountered costly propane issues.
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| Apparently there is some code that says the propane unit has to be a
certain distance away from the dwelling. And again, who knew it would
cost thousands of dollars to move it and add new lines connecting it
back to the house?! |
We tried adding a hallway off the current garage, but encountered proximity to the current leach field issues. Apparently there is another code that says you have to have at least 20+ feet between the dwelling and the leach field.
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| The darker green lines are the leach field lines. Lilly is standing in the middle line. The line closest to the far stick in the background measured just 10 inches from where Pam's Place could potentially have been built. Admittedly, it is kind of gross to think what is under that lush green grass! (If you are unfamiliar with what a leach field is, like I was this time last year, let me enlighten you...it's where all the things that go into your pipes come out! |
We even went so far as to inquire about making a separate dwelling completely, but we ran into costly permit issues. Seriously, $3000 just to apply and that doesn't even guarantee you'll get the permit.
The funny thing is, now we are back to the original option that came across which is Pam's Place will go in the current garage and we will add a 3 car detached garage elsewhere on the property. Of course, why would we have made it so much less complicated by choosing this option first?!! Because we're the Mann's of course, and we thrive on living with complications! NOT!
So now that we've made the decision for where to put Pam's Place and give our cars a happy home for the winter we are back to waiting. Waiting for the appraisal to come back high enough. And given today's market we are trusting in God to make miracles happen. Again!
Waiting for the loan to close. They are saying anywhere from 3-6 months, but I am hopeful it will be within the current calendar year! I guess with interest rates so low everyone and the mama wants to buy a house or refinance their current house. I can't imagine why?!
Waiting for construction to begin...again, hopefully by December.
And waiting to get life back to some sort of normal. I know. What kind of life would that be? Certainly not one filled with weekends on the couch watching movie marathons!
Of course I am probably the first to complain about the not so good parts of the bad weather. But when I don't have to get up early to drive to work, stand outside for before/after/recess school duty, or have to deal with any negative aspect of the bad weather, I really do love it! 
