Thursday, September 11, 2008

Amicus Green Building

After I published the last blog, I thought of something else I wanted to mention - that is a store in Kensington, MD that specializes in environmentally-friendly products. The store is called Amicus Green Building supply. We got a quote for our kitchen cabinets from them and we're planning to buy our soy-based stain for the concrete floor there. We're also intrigued with a product called American Earth Clay plaster. I received an email from Amicus promoting a seminar on applying this plaster yourself and called within two days of getting the email. But by the time I called the class was filled. So I'm now on their waiting list.

Check out American Clay at http://www.americanclay.com/ and Amicus at http://www.amicusgreen.com/.

Bad Blogger

I was reminded yesterday and today that I haven't been a good blogger. Unfortunately, not a lot has been going on with the house. The City of Falls Church had some comments on the building permit application, so the architect turned his changes around rapidly. It has taken longer than I expected for The Care of Trees to finish the tree preservation plan changes and for Huntley Nyce & Associates to finish the grading plan changes. But we hope that those changes will be complete soon and the City can then finish its review of the building permit. If no more changes are required, we could have a permit soon. Or not.

Once we have the permit, we will schedule the closing on the land (we haven't purchased the land yet, but will do so approximately one month after we get the building permit).

We've been working with the mortgage broker on the financing package details (we'll now finish the third bedroom on the lower level to have a 3BR/2BA house -- with rough-in plumbing for a third bath -- which will help increase the appraisal for the loan). The quotes for some of the work came in higher than we were originally led to believe they would by our construction manager, Chad, with UBuildIt, but we've been working to get those bids down to much more reasonable quotes for today's (slow) construction market. We want the subcontractors to make enough of a profit that they can afford to eat, but we don't want to pay them so much money that we won't be able to afford to eat once we're in the house!

I've traded messages with my insurance agent about the necessary coverages for a construction project, since we'll be the general contractors, and I hope we'll be able to
talk in real time soon.

Let me know if you have any questions....post a comment and tell me what you're thinking.