The House Project

We went up there last night, to see how the project was progressing. It was hot and muggy in Boise--but quite pleasant at the property, perhaps 75 degrees, and the wind was blowing.

The culvert (the little pipe that lets water pass under our driveway at the edge of our property) is in:



It was actually dusk when we arrived, so I brightened up some of these pictures to make them more enjoyable. The excavations seem to be complete, with sticks in the ground. That house up the hill, next to the airstrip is actually huge. It is what I would have built if I were as rich as most people I used to work with. (Sniff, sniff, try not to sound too envious.) Apparently the forms will be put in place by the concrete guys:



This is looking south, towards the neighbor's house we want to hide by moving that mountain of dirt on the right into a berm:



There are some big basalt boulders left. This was about 18 inches or more across. I didn't try picking it up:



The next picture may still be loading, if you have a slow connection. I didn't want to shrink this image down, because it came out rather well, of the Moon rising over Bogus Basin ski resort. This was shot with an HP Photosmart 812--a completely inadequate camera for this sort of thing, but you can still make out some detail:



Looking north down the Payette River, into Horseshoe Bend. This is the view from the master bedroom, the family room, the kitchen, and probably the observatory for Big Bertha:



Another shot of the Moon, a little later:



Some of our neighbors don't seem to believe in leash law. (Yes, those are horses.)



The appraisal came in--$282,000. This is a bit lower than I expected (although about $20,000 more than we will spend on land, improvements, and house), partly because two nearby houses were sold at foreclosure--and one of them, as far as I was concerned, should probably have been bulldozed, and a new house built. This is enough that I won't have to come up with any money out of pocket to keep it at an 80% LTV (Loan to Value) to avoid paying Private Mortgage Insurance. The low appraisal may actually be an advantage, if Boise County uses the same comparables to figure the taxes.

We need to go out and sign some paperwork for the power line easement for Idaho Power tomorrow--and because the mortgage company isn't quite done with their paperwork, we need to write a $2398 check to get Idaho Power to schedule a date to drop the 12.5 kV line into the power trench, and plant the transformer next to the house. I expect that this is the only check that I will be writing throughout this entire process. (This is also about $1500 less than the initial estimates, so I am reasonably happy.)