The Background

Back in 2003 when we were looking at moving out of suburbia into a house on some acreage, Frugaldad's brother let us know that a house on their street was going to be on the market soon. The man living in it had passed away and the widow was moving out. They didn't know anything about the house.

My sister-in-law happened to be walking by one day when the realtor was there but the house hadn't gone on the market yet. She got her business card and our realtor was able to walk us through it. Our house had been on the market for a few months already. The day this house went on the market, we got an offer on our house so we put in an offer on the house and though it was up against another offer, ours was accepted.

The drawback was we were moving from a 2100 square-foot house into a 1600 square-foot house. There were still two living areas, but one fewer bedroom, one fewer bathroom, and smaller closets. We knew, though, that with a big piece of property like this (it's about 4.5 acres) that it would be a lot easier to add on to the house than to make the lot bigger. Big lots were also getting much more few and far between, and the cost of real estate in our area was skyrocketing.

The last (almost) 4 years we've lived here, planning all the while. Frugaldad sat in front of the television with a floor plan and a pencil and sketched and erased and sketched again.

Finally, we decided it was time. Last fall we hired a designer to draw up blueprints for us. We didn't have a final set, however, because our plans included a basement under the addition, and no one knew how close we could dig to the existing house without undermining the footings and foundation. We finally decided to just draw the plans with the assumption that we'd dig a little distance out from the house and make the basement smaller than the upstairs.

The new addition is going to be in the place of our existing family room. It was actually an addition to the house about 3 years after the house was built in 1975. It was a glorified porch. It leaked like a sieve. It was always the hottest room and the coldest room. So it had to go.

As spring turned into summer, we turned our plans into the city to get our building permits. The next day, because of the permitting process, we found out that the existing drain field of our septic system was too close to the proposed location of the addition. Since the drain field was already over 30 years old we were lucky that it hadn't failed. We decided to put in a new drain field and found a good excavation contractor. And since he was going to be here with all his equipment, we also hired him to demo and excavate for the addition. His crew put in a new drain field and while they waited for the inspector to come they started tearing down the existing family room (which we have dubbed the "subtraction"). Then they finished the drain field and finished the demolition. Then they came and dug a big hole for the basement.

I'm working on uploading pictures but it takes a while, even with a fast internet connection. The Frugalkids go back to school tomorrow so I hope to have a little more time before the concrete contractor gets here on Thursday.