Crystal and I have been in the process of trying to find a house. Even though we really love where we are living now (and our roommates), we feel that it is time to look for a place of our own. After looking for some time, we finally found the land that we are wanting to build our house on. The land is in Lenoir City and barely 5 mins from the interstate. This gives us instant access to Knoxville, where I land most of my jobs. Not only is this land close to the interstate, but it is also 5.23 acres.
The size of the property feels immense. When we originally started this venture, we wanted to try for at least 2 acres but felt very discouraged as we kept having to look further from my job and at lots whose prices were ridiculous. Many of the .5 acre lots in Lenoir City were 50,000 dollars. We got our 5+ acre lot for less. The biggest challenge with this property is that it is pretty much the side of a mountain. The entire yard has a bit of a steep pitch. Thankfully, we worked out a way to flatten out a large area on our land but still maintain much of the current timber and foliage.
One of the most interesting features of this land is that it has a very large ravine on one side of the property. In fact, over half of our property is ravine. Despite the fact that this is generally considered a bad thing, I am pretty stoked as I have some pretty cool ideas on how to make this 'problem' a cool feature of our home. My ideas include: zip lines, paintball courses, and (maybe someday) a pond.
Needless to say, Crystal and I were happy w/ the land and after throwing a few prices back and forth, Crystal and I are now, officially, land owners.
Now that we have a place, we are rapidly working to build our home. I never really realized the amount of effort new construction required, despite the fact of working in construction for about 10 years. Today, Crystal and I went up to the property (which I am currently calling Wampler Mountain) to finalize some of the measurements for our building permit. Here are a few pictures I that took along the way:
We actually took quite a few other pictures as well. If you are interested, check out my flickr photoset. I am starting to fancy myself as a pseudo amateaur photographer, so forgive me for taking the 'power shots.'
I am pretty ecstatic that we are well on our way to become homeowners. Despite all the permits, bids, measurements, budgeting, searching, etc., I feel that our efforts will be well worth it.
On a side note, I felt compelled to go visit the land right after its purchase. Upon arrival, I found that someone decided to leave me a present right on the edge of my property.
If anyone is missing or has need of a very large tangled mess of posts, barb wire, chicken wire, and a healthy portion of rust, feel free to come by and pick it up. /sigh...