Layout and Excavation begins!

Whoo-hoo!  Giraffe personnel are on-site and work has officially begun in September 2014!  The first step was to do the layout and see exactly where the house would sit.

Home site final prep, pre-construction

Well, the time has finally come.  We're going to start building a house here soon!  But the site needs to be ready.  We need clearance around the sides of the home, minimal obstructing tree branches, and access via a solid construction-grade road.

Last view looking north before work would begin.

After Ross added perimeter silt-fencing on the south (downhill) sides of the site, and brought the construction road into the site.

Financing a Construction Loan - The Idiocy of Modern Banking

I don't want to spend a lot of time on this post, because it's something I'd rather forget.  But it was quite a saga.  In light of all the complaining I'm about to do below, I will give a shout out to Greenstone Farm Credit Services.  In fact, if you want to buy some vacant land in Michigan without paying all cash, they are pretty much your only option.  To get a loan from them, you have to buy shares in the company and become a member, after which you get paid back annual dividends.  You get a reliable loan agent who treats you like a person, with a local office.  Refreshing!

But it took us over 2 months to get our construction loan approved, when it could/should have only taken a few weeks at most.  Why?  I'll explain - the process is something like this: