A good sign

In an earlier post, I included a picture of our lot that showed a simple stake in the ground where our house was going to be. My wife and I drove by the development in the rain yesterday and snapped this picture:

It isn't a significant change, but it is certainly meaningful to us. At last, after four months of waiting, there is something to indicate our commitment to the community. We also noticed that much of the development, including our lot, has gained a coating of straw. Some parts of the site have also been given sheets of grass seed. If we get some good weather, I'll drive up to the development and take a few more pictures.

Update

We went by there today, and they appear to have staked out the exterior boundaries of the house, including the detached garage. Everything seems okay, although the garage stakes seemed to indicate a rectangular garage instead of the square garage we chose. I'll have to go back out there this weekend with a measuring tape.

Permit delay

Apparently, the township aren't happy with certain aspects of our development relating to grading, lot boundaries and the sewer infrastructure. Our project manager tells me that the issues are minor and can be resolved fairly quickly, but it still means a delay before they will be able to break ground on our new home. I've updated the timeline to reflect the change. The original estimate we were given for closing was sometime in early November, but with this new delay and the Irene-related issues it seems more likely that our settlement date will be pushed back to the beginning of January. I'm a little bit disappointed, but part of me is also happy that we won't have to worry about moving over Christmas.

Neighbors

My wife and I drove out to the development in the forlorn hope that we might have broken ground today, but nothing had happened and the site was deserted. Except it wasn't. It turns out we weren't the only couple having a look at their future home site today. In an extraordinary stroke of luck, we met a wonderful young couple who turned out to be future neighbors, so we had a little chat about our hopes and dreams for Sadsbury Park. I told them about our little blogging community, so perhaps we'll be able to add to our numbers.

Still nothing

I suppose we have to blame the weather. As you can see from our timeline, we didn't break ground as scheduled. There's been an awful lot of rain in our corner of Pennsylvania and it would be fair to say that such conditions do not facilitate the digging of holes in the ground. The workmen have not been idle though. Over the last few days, the road structure of the development has been expanded and warning signs have been put in. I was hoping that they would've put up a street sign so that I could take a picture, but I guess they're going to wait until they can do them all at the same time. In the meantime, my wife and I shall have to remain content with checking the updates and activities of our fellow Ryan Homes bloggers.

Almost ready to start

The Sadsbury Park development (where we will be building our Michener II) has finally been prepared for construction to begin. The road that runs past the site has now been opened, and much of the street infrastructure has asphalt. The developer has created a shiny new promotional website to attract buyers and I expect they will begin construction on a decorated model home very shortly. For the first time, my wife and I were able to actually drive into the development and take a picture of our vacant lot:

You can see the farmhouse that I've mentioned previously, and our house will be located in the space between it and the stake in the foreground. We are scheduled to break ground on the day after tomorrow. In the modern vernacular, one could say that “shit is just about to get real.”