OMGOSH. Bid Set it complete!! We’re about 90% there with the plans + we’re on our way to getting the estimate. SO excited!
With any luck we’ll have the estimate by 9/22 and can get the final plan edits complete the last week of September + submit them to Ponce for permits. Then if they do their magic in a month again, we may just be able to clear the lot by Halloween!!!
I got so excited and so into the new house that I forgot to even post the update last week.
NEIL SENT PLANS!
And they are seriously cool + fun + we love them. We had so few questions and tiny little things we want to revise. Little things like removing a sink here or there. Add a door here vs. there.
The guest suite area above the garage is perfect and probably a couple of rooms that the girls will totally want to take over as their own. You pop down a few steps so it feels a little separate from the main house. And you get a little living room with a bar area / mini-fridge + TV + then a bedroom + full bathroom.
Cannot wait to see the revisions in about a week, and then the best part: ELEVATIONS! That means we will get to see what the new house will look like from the outside, not just a floor plan!
Have I mentioned I’m seriously so excited.
It’s the third week of July + that means that Neil is starting on our project!!! SO EXCITED. Can’t wait to see what he comes up with. Oh please please please let’s hope he’s on schedule and starting on Mar Azul this week!!!
Now to the fun part! We’re moving forward with new plans, building a fun house to live in and love for many years to come (or at least maybe 5-10 years??).
Most importantly we have AWESOME people we are working with. We couldn’t love our builder more.
Forever Homes — Jack and Lisa Nunez — have stuck with us through this crazy indecisiveness of building on the ocean, building across the street, scrapping the first 2 sets of plans, and now moving onto yet another set of plans. I’m quite certain they think we are nuts. Luckily they haven’t fired us because we cannot wait for Jack to get started!
We’ve done so many plans at this point with our architect, we decided to take all of what we have worked so hard on for the last year+ and make it into a smarter home that works great for us. It will give the girls all the private space they need + fun areas for them and their friends. It will give Craig a dedicated + quiet office (WOAH!!!!). It will give the kitties proper spaces for their food and LitterRobot. We’ll have an awesome pool again in the back yard. And with a little luck, we’ll be able to get some sneak peeks of the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse + the Atlantic ocean if we are lucky. ?
Jack + Lisa have an engineer they work with on many of their projects named Neil. I met Neil a few weeks back and he had great comments and thoughts on the house + he’s already called and asked questions and is already busy working on the plans for the house!!! HAHA…ok not. He can’t start till the week of July 22nd.
About a month ago I had a little meltdown that Neil couldn’t start for so long on our project, but summer is crazy with camps + fun, so the time has flown by so fast.
Seriously though, even though it went by fast, we are so excited to get started with Neil to draw these up (aka, fix them + tidy them up to plans that are amazing + make it look super awesome on the exterior!!) + get permits (again) + FINALLY clear the lot @ Mar Azul.
Super cool modern house all filed away in the hopes we can build something like that on another lot, another day.
But what to do now? Our architect is out of town for a month. We aren’t going to build the super cool modern house (aka “spendy house”).
Craig told me I could be patient and just wait till the end of July when an engineer could work on some ideas and plans or wait for our architect to come back. Or he said I could try and come up with ideas too while we wait.
So of course I got my supplies all ready — pencil, eraser, ruler and paper. Then I cut up all the giant plans from the spendy house into puzzle pieces. I spent a TON (like days and days) of time on ArchitecturalDesigns.com sending Craig every plan that was pretty cool and interesting + could fit on that crazy piece of land. Google + Pinterest became new best friends for floor plan and house ideas. And then, we worked on a few ideas.
Crazy as it is, we have 2 new floor plan layouts that we love even more than the other house! We cut the square footage by about 1500 square feet and we have just as much amazing and cool and fun stuff in the house + a much needed gigantagarage to hold all the cars + toys!
Next up I guess we will see if we learned from our mistakes of the past. Can our ideas actually be built in reality. AND in budget??
