Should we do it

Two summers ago our elderly neighbor Mr. William Muhlhouser passed away, his son who lived with his father was soon to follow, he left and is some where down south trying to be a musician at the age of 55. There is a daughter who lives 3 hours from Missoula, she had tried for a year to maintain the estate but was finding it hard, this is where Steve and I enter the story. Neighbors mentioned to us that the daughter was going to place the home up for sale and was really looking to get it sold as soon as possible. We did not have much interest in being land lords but we did like to property (3.5 lots our is 2 lots) and said we would think about it. We did think about it, made an offer and it was turned down. We were some what relieved seeing we really were not in need of moving or looking to build. The daughter then came back a few weeks later and told us she would take our offer. We thought about it and we said yes.

We closed on the home in February and have been getting ready to start the building. The process to this point has been mixed. The design stage went well, other than the home is bigger than we wanted or needed, but they keep telling us it was all about resale. So we have almost all the things we had hoped for with lots of yard left for a large garden and chickens.

We had to remove some trees and while designing the home we found out that the existing home was not useable due to the fact that the home was a log structure that had been stuccoed over. This resulted in the home being deconstructed and recycled by a local company that resells all that can be used (80% of home resold before project was even done).

We now have a lot with fewer trees and just a basement ( that can not be used). We are finally getting the banking done so we have a start date of 7/5/11. Builder is telling us 4 mths so we will be in by Thanksgiving.

I will be adding photos of what we have done so far and will keep you up dated as we go along. Steve and I are very excited for the project to start and to share the events with you. If anyone has advice we would love to have it.