Back to the Drawing Board

The only thing that it seems to have done for the last few weeks is rain, rain, and more--you guessed it-- rain. Everything else is at a standstill. Trixie and the 2 other expecting does have still yet to show signs of being near delivery. It's been too wet to finish the chicken coop (but the chicks have been ordered and are due to come in July... who knew there was a waiting list for chicks?) The excavation has come to a pause as well.

As far as the house goes, we literally have had to go back to the drawing board. The house plans as they were did not appraise well enough. This is mostly because there are not enough comperable log homes in the area and the appraisal guidelines don't consider mountain-side plans any differently. The first level--since it is "below grade" being down the mountain--was considered only of value of basement space and the bedrooms could not be considered as such. Therefore, our 5 bedroom house was considered to have only the value of a one bedroom with half of the square footage. Needless to say, the numbers just don't add up.

So, since we can't change the mountian (or appraisal guidelines) we've decided to try to change the plan. As most of it was not "below grade" ... just the lower level south wall was against the mountain, we are going to see if we can make the whole thing "above grade" so to speak. It'll mean more steps to the front door and more windows in the lower level, but we figure that it is at least worth a try. We'll see... there maybe a rainbow in all this rain afterall. Can you see the one in the picture?