Ground Breaking Update
Are y’all about ready to break ground?! I know I am. I don’t have an official date yet, but we are getting very close! As you can imagine, so many little items have to fall into place in order for us to start moving dirt, so I thought I’d share an update.
In my last post, I shared about our bank experiences and that we finally secured an excellent bank for this project. Since then, we have been waiting for the appraisal so we can finalize the loan and complete the closing process. We are currently on track to close the last week of July or first week of August. We were hoping for sooner, but y’all, this real estate market is wild and appraisers are slammed.
But some exciting things have been happening while we wait for that appraisal!
Jason and Glenn, our Contractor, met a few weeks ago to discuss some plans around the bridge that you cross as you enter the property. It’s a concrete bridge, but we wanted to make sure it’s strong enough to handle all the trucks, equipment, truck loads of gravel, concrete and dirt that will be coming and going, so we are planning to reinforce it. They came up with a game plan for that and we hope to start that “mini” project the second week of August.
As part of the overall project, we want to drop some of the power lines underground. Months ago, we met with a Sevier County Electrical Engineer to discuss moving power poles and power lines to accommodate our goal of not having power lines running all over the place overhead. Glenn met with them again a few weeks ago to let them know we’re close to kicking off this project and before we knew it, they were out there moving power lines and power poles! It’s so exciting and fun to start to see some activity out there!
If you follow us on Instagram, you may remember that I’m putting together a binder for each cottage with design details, electrical plans, plumbing fixture information, colors, etc. It has been a big undertaking to put those together. I’m not done yet, but have made some progress in the recent weeks. Luckily, I have time on these because the first few months will be focused on establishing all the infrastructure such as underground utilities, septic, etc.
While it may seem like things have slowed down, we’re still making lots of progress. Our contractor is in the process of winding down some active projects and will be shifting his teams to our project in the coming weeks. We have a “pre-game” meeting scheduled with him next week so go over all the plans, talk timelines, discuss any potential delays in materials so can get ahead of those, and work through any potential foreseeable roadblocks.
To say we’re excited to have made it to this point is an understatement! Stay tuned for more updates. As our timeline begins to shape up, I’ll keep you up to date so you don’t miss a thing! :)
