Snow Day 2 and More Markers

We got a pretty decent snow today for Texas. I left work an hour early to go take a quick peak at the lot this time with actual snow unlike a few days ago.

There were more markers placed. Today I saw markers by AT&T and ONCOR. There were also markers for the 4 corners of the foundation. Last, they have put up mesh and plastic barriers around the perimeter of the property.

While I was out taking photos in the 26 degree cold, my car died and never started again. I'm guessing dead battery. I called a tow truck to take it to my mechanic.

Snow Day and Gas Line Markers

The forecast called for 2-4 inches of snow. Being a native north Texan, I know better. We did get about a half inch of snow that quickly melted away.

At lunch, I drove the family over to the lot to see if there was any snow on the ground. There was a little but most of it had already melted into large puddles of water.

An unexpected sight was the little yellow Atmos Energy buried gas line markers that have appeared since our last visit on Saturday.

Ground Breaking (Day Photos)

Kelvin and I drove over to the lot today to take a few pictures of what we could barely see last night. The ground breaking.

Ground Breaking

We decided to go for a drive this evening just to get out of the house. Everyone has been sick for weeks and it has a lot to do with the poor air quality in our crummy apartment.

I started heading toward our new neighborhood kind of aimlessly. Kelvin got sleepy so we decided to turn around and go back home. We were pretty much already just about in our new area when my wife asked me where I was going. I said, we came this far already, we might as well drive by our lot.

To our surprise we discovered that ground has been broken. We were very excited to see this. Even Kelvin woke up excited.

It was dark but I managed to shine the brights on some of the land to get a photo. We will have to go back over during daylight hours.

It's hard to see in this picture but the sidewalk, driveway and foundation is ready to be formed.

Back on Schedule

I was called back over to the builder reps office to sign the updated color options addendum. It all has to be resubmitted on Monday to their corporate office.

This should put us back on schedule. We are being told that it won't be until March for the pre-construction meeting. That's how many people are ahead of us.

Later in the evening, I took the family over to see the new lot.

Lot Transfer

Our builder sales rep called me this morning and confirmed indeed that the house must face West. She had a solid reason but the details leave me now. It had to do with a retaining wall and 7 feet. It sounded like a matter of irrigation.

My wife and I had discussed looking at another lot just 5 plats over and a sure thing on the direction of the house. So, we put that into motion and had the rep verify availability of the new lot. She chose the new lot because of the number. There is a water tower very close by and I don't want to look out the window and see it all of the time. It shouldn't be visible from inside of the house. The upside is we can enjoy the free shade during the summer.

We received confirmation on the availability of the new lot and I was asked to show up to sign the new contract and terminate the old one immediately to avoid further delays.

I raced over to her office and signed everything, well almost. There are a few tie in pieces that involve third parties such as the color selections addendum paperwork that will need to reflect the new address.

[sigh] I had to go move the frozen sold sign from the corner lot over to the new lot. It's much smaller but not tiny. We really don't want to go through the entire process again. We are no longer getting the holy-cow-how-did-you-get-so-lucky deal, but still getting a really-good-deal.

Feng Shui Issue Rears Its Head Again

I got a call today from our builder's sales rep. I was pretty sure I knew that she was calling to tell me that she learned about me inquiring about building a pool during the construction process. By the way, we won't be doing that because they don't do it and it would be mega expensive even if they did allow it.

Instead, she hit me up the side of the skull with bad news. Really bad news. She said that during corporate's attempt to get a permit on our corner lot, the house must face the street to the West and not the street to the North. As I mentioned before here, our very first question about the lot was the ability to face the house North and they verified that we could. In fact the address dictates the direction by reference of the street name. That is all over our contract.

I was so shocked at this unexpected turn of events. I expressed to her that we had made it crystal clear from the start how important Feng Shui is to my wife. I had even told them the story about having to walk away from the house in Forney because of a similar issue.

I called Fiona and explained to her what was going on.

We have put the ball back in the builder's court to do whatever they have to do to get this house positioned the way that we agreed to. I know it can be a long shot when dealing with permits but we have to try. If they can't do it, we want a real reason, since it will mean we would have to terminate the contract and be out time off from work, daycare expenses and other expenses and time from all of the back and forth that goes on.