All the trees have leafed out, the grass is growing and we are still waiting on our HOA. They finally got the check from the title company (Sent back on 18 March!) and recognize us as the new owners of lot 80, plot 19 of Cougar Mountain Estates. We sent the check for the review/approval of our house plans back on 24 April but they still haven’t gotten it. They must only check the PO Box once a month! Meantime we have met with three builders to get estimates. We drove around to see houses under construction by all three. Along the way, we stopped at the Revolver Brewery in Granbury for the first time. After sampling their beers, we know we will be back! We got two responses from the builders on Friday (9 May) and both gave David new grey hairs! The third decided not to propose. The two we received are considerably higher than they first lead us to believe. We told them what we are shooting for and asked them to provide us ideas on how we could cut the price down. #1 was move the house closer to the street. So we bought a 300ft long tape ruler and went out to the property on the 9th and made our best estimate of where the rear patio would be based on the plot. We then walked toward the street until we decided we could go no further without losing too much of our desired view off the back patio. Then measured that estimated location to the street. We could move the house 55ft closer to the street which would reduce the concrete costs for the driveway and landscaping costs for sod and irrigation in the front yard. We also decided to reduce the width of the driveway from 20 ft to 15ft. We notified both builders of our changes. We went up to the pet groomer to pick up Keira and found ourselves right by the house designer’s office, so we stopped by and asked her to update the plot since the builder will need updated SQFT calculations and we will need the updated plot for the HOA review. Hopefully that will get us closer to our budget.
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| Keg Riding |
