Its officially out of my control.....

Sorry its been so long since I have posted, but I have been buried under the massive undertaking that is budgeting for the proposal that I submitted to the bank today. SO, we have finally reached the point that I have been looking toward for 3 months. I took full sized blueprints of all four floors along with the master electrical plan, and elevations with a line item budget for each basic cost of the construction. Along with this, I included a 5 page description of the home, what we hoped to accomplish, and a floor by floor account of the finishes and design of the interior of the house. This is important because we have to make sure that the bank, architect, and appraiser all can get a good sense for the home without actually seeing it. Clearly this subjectivity is what is really hard about financing a deal like this. Now its up to the bank to do their thing, and that sounds like it will take a few week to get some direction. Its going to be close to 10.15.08, but thats the goal still.

Let me just say that its been a LOT of work. Thankfully, I have had the help of an experienced professional who knows what he is doing, and has been gracious enough to help me through the process the entire way.

Taking rough plans and getting them into a very specific bid number is not easy. I am not saying that I was the one that did all of the wrangling, as I had help with someone who was leaning on his subcontractors to create accurate bids based on the plans. However, taking the bids, and turning a less-then-specific number based on inexact plans and getting them to the point where they are as accurate as possible for the budget, is challenging.

The tougher part was making a decision on some of the finishes in the house without actually being able to see how they will look put together. This was mainly relegated to the tile selection, counter tops, and master bath fixtures. Lets just say that its really easy to spend a ton of money on these things before you even realize what you have done.

More on the design choices, and where we are at architecture-wise tomorrow.....until then, one peaceful night of sleep without having to think about hitting the deadline today.