Our Dream Home, Delivered!

Floor plan view of our "Dream Home"

Jack and I have made our decision. We will be buying a manufactured home for our property rather than build a house on site.

We were able to make it to Hot Springs again to visit our favorite pre-fab home manufacturer’s rep, Darla. For over an hour we bombarded her with our many questions. When the grilling was done, we were satisfied. She was going to be making a sale.

We picked out a lovely 1,800+ square foot home with three bedrooms, an office, fireplace and oak kitchen cabinets. Our dining area will feature a 5 foot sliding glass door and our heating/cooling system will be a heat pump. We would have liked to do the geothermal system but we were told that runs another $25,000 – installed.

On Sunday, we met the site development person, Bud, at our property. For about $1,000 Bud is going to level out our hill - so our prefab house can go in along with space reserved for a carport. For $300 + materials he will create our driveway out of a gravel and clay mix that is very popular around here. We have to move our septic system location from the original plan...it doesn't fit in the current area. Bud will work with the original guy who mapped it out to get the plans changed and get the update approved with the county and heath board channels. The foundation of the house, connecting electric and plumbing and anything else required to set up the house will be done by the installers. Once the house is in place, we will be responsible for adding the decks and a carport/shed. How is that for manifesting easy!!!

There is some sad news though. As much as I wanted to save the trees, it's going to be brutal. Bud said he is required by law to grade the land away from the house by at least 10 feet. This is to insure that water does not drain under the house which would cause black mold; a serious problem around here because of our hot and humid summers. Also, our lot slants in two directions away from the top of the hill. Bud and his crew will have to level it in both directions to get the home to sit level and drain properly. There is at least a 6 foot drop from east to west and equally as large a drop from north to south. A lot of earth will have to be moved to the lower areas.

Our septic system plan involves four - 75 foot long trenches – dug 4 feet deep for laying the drainage system. That is in addition to the tank area and the pipes that go up to the house. The installer will use a backhoe for this work. It is possible to go around the larger trees, but the tree root systems will be compromised. All the smaller trees will be removed as they are too small to go around. The Oak trees are the majority of smaller trees.

In addition to all of that - the home is delivered in two halves on trailers. The site will have to be graded so the truck drivers can pull the house into position and still have room to drive the truck and trailer around the other side and get back to our driveway. There is a sharp drop on the east side of the house down to a gully that runs to the creek. Even if we put in a site built home, a lot of this work would need to take place to secure this side of the land. It was a sad day on Sunday, for me and the trees.

The upside of this is that we will now have a nice area to build a pond on the east side of the house, and we will have additional sunny areas for planting gardens. We were told that most of the trees growing on our land are considered scrub by the locals. Other than the oak trees, what is left is fast growing pines and a lot of weedy shrub stuff. We plan to replace a lot of the lost trees with Oak, Maple and local trees. I am thinking a magnolia tree in the front yard would be awesome!!! Zone 7 – I have a lot of trees to choose from!

We have also made decisions on our timing! Our current plan is to have the site leveled and the drive way put in by the end of March. This will give the land and drive way time to settle before we actually move the house in this fall. We are looking at having the house delivered November 1. That would give us a month to move out of our rental house and find a cheap apartment somewhere in Little Rock. Our plan is to live in the little apartment during the week and live out on the land on weekends, holidays and when Jack takes vacations. Preliminary numbers confirm that we will be able to rent a small place and pay our mortgage for the same amount we are currently paying for rent! Now I am wishing we only had a 6 month lease on this place. The time will be good though - in November the place won’t look so much like a construction zone when we move in as we will have the whole summer to work on landscaping!!!