interiordd.com Blog

This project is teaching me many things – among them is patience!  If you had asked me in November where I thought the project would be by mid-March, I’m sure that I would have thought that we’d at least be constructing the house.  As it is, we are –as of this evening- ready to submit for our building permits.  On the other hand, we have made great progress.

We have found a landscape architect (L.A.).  The trusted source was definitely the way to go.  Working with this firm has been an absolute pleasure, and I could not be more pleased with the results.  They not only created an amazing site plan for us, but they also revised it when we thought of another option that we wanted to explore.  I firmly believe that the more ideas that one explores, the better the solution and this project is going to be a spectacular culmination of these ideas.

Additionally, we have found a builder willing to work with us.  This builder is renowned for his houses in one of the areas most affluent neighborhoods, and I am thrilled to have him on board with us.  He has brought us the grading team that will be working on our site, and we are looking forward to seeing his equipment on the site.

The trees are down!  The site has been tree-less since before Christmas, and we are ready to see things develop.  We have staked off the house-site numerous times, but it will become much more real when the earth has been moved, and the concrete has been poured.

Thanks to the landscape team, we have found the man that we need to transplant as much of the existing trees and shrubs as possible and practical.  This includes a beautiful Magnolia tree that is about 16’ tall with a 6” diameter trunk.  There are also several gardenias, camellias, plus some other shrubs and trees that we are also planning to transplant.  Once the initial grading is done, we will be able to transplant most plants to the perimeter of the site where they will not be disturbed.  This will open up some areas where more development will take place.

The plans have been finalized.  We decided to drop the idea of a front porch.  There were several reasons for that decision, but it has enabled us to persue a more pure form of the French country look that we are seeking.  We made the last few changes to the exterior of the house a week ago, and now that we have received the L.A.’s site plan, we are ready to submit three sets of all of the plans for each lot.  For the one lot we are submitting for a new home site and building permit.  For the second lot we are submitting for a pool and pool house.  I will go into greater detail about the site and layout of the buildings in a future post.  Please stay tuned!!