So we’ll have .453 acres – 3x what we have now in NJ. The land is very rocky and sandy all at the same time. There is a very large boulder in the back section of the yard – the seller implied it was as big as a room. Denis and I may try and get an estimate as to how much it would be to jackhammer/blast it out so that we can put the inground pool in it’s place when the time comes.
The lot is mildly sloped from front to back- the top of the poured footings are at least 6-7′ below “street level”, which means once the 4′ standard crawl space and the 1′ floor joists are put in it’ll still be 1′ below the street. We had hoped to have a slightly raised front porch, so we’ll see if we can have a 6′ crawl space instead in order to be at least 1′ above the street level once all is said and done. It’ll require a LOT of dirt to be brought in to level off the front yard, but it’ll be worth it. The sloping in the backyard can be modified with more dirt along with the pool and decking (which can be multilevel to compensate for any sloping as well).
There are practically-dead pine trees on the side of the lot shared with the neighbors, but the seller said he wants to cut them down since they are useless. That’s fine with us – we’d most likely plant a row of evergreen trees of some kind on that side to allow for pool privacy and shade. The seller mentioned Leyland Cypress, but we have one of those in our backyard currently and I just know those will grow too tall (ours has grown over five feet in the four years since I planted it with no signs of stopping until it has reached it’s full height (which, uh, is 80 feet (I planted it thinking it would grow to EIGHT feet – I read the label wrong)). I’ll be looking for evergreens that only grow to 10-20 feet tall, not 80 feet tall!
The fencing in the rear of the lot is definitely ours. The seller put it up. I had thought the owner of the lot on the other side of the fence had built it. So we have 1/3 of our fence done already, which is awesome! I don’t trust Cooper not to run in chase of rabbits, so we’ll definitely be putting up a privacy fence on the sides of the lot. The seller mentioned using electronic fencing, but I’m not stupid – we’d never see Cooper again if we only had electronic fencing.
The lot gets TONS of sun. We should have no problems involving passive solar design into our houseplan. The way the lot sits, “south” is technically on the back right side of the house, so that side will have a lot of windows to take advantage of the sun.
We may forgo having a garage unless we find a houseplan that has one that doesn’t “waste” space. Our neighbors don’t have one, opting to convert the normal garage space into a rec room. Yes, we may be tossing out yet another floorplan. Our lot, while 200 feet deep, just seems too shallow for the 90′ long four-square house that I posted about last week. In fact, based on the price our future neighbors paid for their house (yes, they were kind enough to tell us) we are going to come up with three house plans: a 3200 sq ft, a 3800 sq ft and a 4400 sq ft. Then we’ll give all three to the builder (the seller) to get cost estimates. Based on his response we’ll pick whichever one fits our budget best and still allows us to “play” a bit with extras like solar power, geothermal heating and the like.
We toured several model homes and came up with several likes and dislikes. Dislike: loft spaces. What a waste. Like: corner kitchen sinks with windows. Dislike: small (10×10) bedrooms. Likes: 4′ wide staircases. We liked all the homes that had 10′ ceilings on the main floor, so we’re definitely going to do that. We’ll go with 9′ ceilings on the second floor. We’ll most likely go with Corian counters in the kitchen, with the island being a separate surface like soapstone or granite.
We saw a lot of home detailing that we liked. One bedroom had handpainted CootieGirl the Pig wall murals that were absolutely precious. We’ll definitely be doing that in CootieGirl’s room when we build the house. Whether she wants it or not. *lol* One great room had fabulous railing up near the ceiling that I LOVED and definitely would like to incorporate somehow. It was a not-too-expensive detail that would really add drama to the ceiling line.
I’ll post pictures tonight when I get home. The only one I have right now is this one of the land from the right front corner and the neighbor’s house in the background:
You can see the dead pines in the upper left of the picture and the fencing in the upper right. That’s our corner stake in the forefront of the picture.