Perc test is done!

Well, we had our perc test completed today (after much rescheduling due to rain). The kids were delighted to go see the backhoe, and many dandelions were picked. Things look good! Unfortunately, the best drainage is right where we want to put the house, so it looks like we might have to go to an engineered system or possibly an advanced treatment system.

In other news, the construction plans are done, and our builder is gathering bids. We’re supposed to get together by this weekend, I think, to go over everything and make sure that it comes in within our budget. After that, we need to get the permits taken care of and finalize the loan with the bank. Dave (our builder) thinks that if everything goes smoothly, we might break ground in June. I’m giddy with anticipation!

 

Where we’re at

Not much new house stuff to report. We’re still waiting on construction documents, so our builder can give us a final estimate (we had a rough one done earlier). We’ve been pre-approved for the loan, so that’s awesome. And next we have to schedule the perc test. The property has perc’d several times before, but those tests have expired, so we need a more updated one. (Sure wish we’d scheduled it before all this rain we’ve had!)

I’ve been hearing that the county is pushing just about everyone to get engineered septic systems, and that’s what our neighbors have, so I’m guessing that’s what we’ll end up with as well.  Sure would be nice to save the $10K or so and just have a standard system, though!

 

How did people plan houses before Pinterest?

We met with our designer on Friday and finalized a few things so he can start drawing up construction plans. We’ve downsized the boys’ bathroom upstairs a bit, reconfigured the master suite bathroom slightly, and changed the entry to Eli’s room (bedroom three on the floor plan) to make it a little less awkward.

In addition, we now have plans for the attic and basement. The basement will probably not be finished for some time, though (or just partially finished). In addition, the bedrooms in the attic won’t really be bedrooms (though they could be eventually, I suppose!). Probably my craft/sewing room will be in one of the attic rooms, and the craft room in the basement will be an exercise room. I really wanted to be able to do my sewing and stuff in a room with good light, and it wasn’t going to be possible without either moving the craft room (thus creating problems for the downstairs guest suite and living room) or putting a big ugly window well on the right side of the house. So I think this is a nice compromise.

When we met with Jim, our designer, he asked if we wanted him to draw out sketches of all the built-ins, or if I had some photos of things I liked. I was all, “Oh, do I ever have photos! Are you familiar with … Pinterest?!”

So, these are sort of what we’re aiming for. I really want to stick to the Colonial Revival style in general but not get too hung up on being being absolutely historically accurate.

Wide archways from foyer to library and dining room (I am SO in love with these wide, paneled door jambs — may be one of those things that has to wait, though, depending on the budget):

Something like this for the fireplace (we’ll have the TV over ours — I want it to be slightly recessed so it doesn’t look like it’s about to tumble off the wall):

Lockers for mudroom (love the little drawers above the area for shoes — perfect for hats and mittens!):

And the upstairs window seat (though ours will have shelves on both sides, and we won’t have the sloped ceiling up there):

 

Preliminary plans, v3.0

(We didn’t post 2.0 because we immediately knew we wanted to make some changes.)

New and improved! Some key differences:

• The playroom is gone and will be in the dining room (for now). We realized that the chances of us throwing formal dinner parties in the near future were probably preeeetty low.
• We’ve kicked out the back living room wall about three feet (and made the second floor slightly bigger as well, making the boys’ bedrooms — bedrooms 3 and 4 — both bigger).
• We got rid of the split landing on the staircase.
• We changed the layout of the master bathroom.
• We added a second door to the first-floor bathroom, making it more accessible for emergency potty visits before we leave (via the mudroom).
• The front elevation has been changed significantly to make it more correct for a Colonial Revival style — we changed the pediment over the front door, added a window above it, got rid of the faux Palladian window on the front of the garage, and replaced it with regular windows, added a fanlight above the front door, etc.

So, let me know what you think! I think we’re just about there. A couple of thoughts I have …

• I wish the windows on the right elevation could be perfectly symmetrical, but I don’t see how that’s possible without making them look off-kilter from within the rooms. I think I’d rather like the way they look from the inside, considering I’ll probably spend much more time in the house than staring at the right side of it. In addition, at looking at photos online and from looking at Colonial Revival neighborhoods in a nearby neighborhood, it seems like the sides often aren’t perfectly symmetrical.
• I think the overhang on the bottom floor (over the cafe and screen porch is a misprint left over from an earlier plan.
• The dishwasher has moved to the left of the sink, but I think I’d prefer to have it on the right, so I can more easily put away dishes in those upper cabinets.
• The cute little half-round window by the gable on the right elevation has disappeared. I think we want to keep it.

A grumpy note

Jay and I went to a small home show at the local high school last weekend. I was really excited to go out and meet vendors and look at products. However, I don’t know if it was our age, the way we were dressed (jeans and T-shirts — not rags or anything), or both, but it was both amusing and somewhat insulting to see everyone repeatedly and obviously direct us toward their cheapest products. Most people were at least polite about it. “Oh, were you looking for XYZ?” “Why, no, actually, we are planning on ABC.”

There was one kitchen and bath shop whose representative almost seemed hostile, as if she was personally insulted that such riff-raff would dare to presume they could shop at her store. I laughed it off at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got. Do I really need to wear Prada to a home show to be taken seriously? Shouldn’t vendors just show people their full range of products (and maybe note, “This one is our budget line, this one is mid-range, and this is our highest-end line”) and let them choose which ones are most appropriate to their budget?

A discussion about this topic on a home-building site I frequent surprised me — apparently quite a few people, especially younger people, have run into this. I got irritated enough that I decided to write a note to the company:

Dear [kitchen and bath store]:

I wanted to send you a brief note to let you know how disappointed I was in my experience with your rep at the home show at [Mytown] High School last weekend. My husband and I met many friendly, helpful vendors at the show — unfortunately, yours was not among them. She seemed annoyed at our interest, and when I asked her questions about the product lines your store carries, she very obviously directed me to the cheapest products (which were not, as I attempted to clarify to her, what we were interested in).

I realize that my husband and I are younger than the average custom home builder, and we don’t generally break out the haute couture attire for home shows. However, it does not follow that we are building a small or low-end home.

It’s unfortunate that your staff member gave us such a bad first impression of your company, because as a stay-at-home mom who loves to cook and bake, I am especially excited about the kitchen in my new home. I hope that, in the future, other potential customers will be treated with more respect and friendliness.

Sincerely,
Alexis C.

Preliminary plans are here!

Eeeek! I’m so excited I’m practically hopping up and down!

At first glance, I LOVE it. We do probably need to trim it down at least a couple hundred feet (where?!), and I think I might want that pediment to be on the roof rather than directly above the door, so we can have a window in that spot on the second floor. Something like this. Or maybe just downsize the pediment, leave it where it is, and still add a small window above it? I’m also worried about not having enough counter space in the kitchen. I tend to sprawl out when I cook

So, without further ado, here they are! Please share comments, criticisms, ideas, and whatever else you’re thinking. (Click on any of the images for a larger size.)

Do C-sections really cause maternal mortality?

One statistic I often hear trotted out in the natural childbirth community is “the U.S. has a really high rate of C-sections, and that’s why we have a high maternal mortality rate.”

Actually, the U.S. doesn’t have the highest C-section rate in the world by a long shot — ours is 31.8 percent, but several countries top 40 percent, including Mexico, Turkey, China and Brazil (where almost half of all babies are born by C-section).

Many countries have a similar or higher C-section rate but much lower maternal mortality rate. Australia has a C-section rate of 31 percent but a quarter of our maternal mortality rate (7/100,000 as opposed to our 21/100,000). The story is the same in Switzerland, with rates of 32 percent and 8/100,000. In Italy, there’s a C-section rate of 38 percent but their maternal mortality is a mere 4/100,000.

So, what is the relation between C-section rates and maternal mortality? Probably not much, frankly. Any difference is probably attributable to a more (or less) homogenous population — especially as some ethnic groups are more prone to certain health complications such as diabetes and high blood pressure — and more widely available health care.

All statistics are from OECD Health Data and the CIA World Factbook.

And, as an addendum, if you’ve heard horror stories about U.S. obstetric care and the U.S.’ infant mortality rate, keep in mind that infant mortality measures deaths up to 1 year of age — it has much more to do with pediatric care than obstetrics.

Links of the week

Whew! I haven’t done a link roundup in a while, but I’ve come across so much good stuff — mostly parenting related — that I thought I’d better get my butt in gear.

• Yelling is one of my worst parenting struggles. I just found The Orange Rhino, which has a great “no-yelling challenge” that I’m going to try take.
• Positive Parents has a great list of fun things to do in February. I love the frozen bubbles idea!
• Amanda from Not Just Cute has a guest post on The Organized Parent about cleaning with kids.
• And, over at Aha Parenting, is one I can particularly use: “3 Steps to Stay Calm When Your Child Isn’t.”
• If you read a blog post that you particularly like and want to read again, and you have an e-reader, I suggest a service like Kindle It, which makes it easy to send the text only to your Kindle. (I wasn’t able to find a similar service for Nook — if you find one, let me know!)

Building book review: “Kelly’s Kitchen Sync”

I was really excited to read “Kelly’s Kitchen Sync: Insider Kitchen Design and Remodeling Tips From an Award-winning Expert,” by blog author Kelly Morisseau. It had rave reviews on Amazon, and when I got the Kindle sample, it looked promising.

However, while this was a very thorough book in some respects, I felt like it was much more oriented toward the remodeler than the new-home builder. There was almost no discussion about general kitchen layout (where should the sink go in relation to the fridge? the oven? the pantry?). She dismisses the idea of the work triangle but doesn’t really tell us what we should be aiming for instead.

However, there is a lot of great information about making sure doors and appliances are able to open properly, and about things like faucets, hardware, flooring, lighting, etc. I found some of this wasn’t very thorough, however; the chapter on countertops didn’t even mention solid-surface, wood or laminate options, for example. The faucet chapter devotes a great deal of talk to avoiding faucet “wedgies” but zero to faucet finishes. (We discovered while replacing our tub and showerhead that the bronze we chose was massively more expensive than other finishes, which is the sort of thing a homeowner planning a remodel might like to know.) The chapters on cabinets talks a lot about door swings and fittings but don’t tell you how to choose a good-quality cabinet.

So, if you’re planning a remodel and especially if you’re doing it yourself (in whole or in part), I’d recommend this book. As someone planning a new home, though, and wanting to devote particular attention to the kitchen, I found it just left out a lot of the information I’d wanted.

Design begins

After a few weeks of interviews and hemming and hawing, we recently chose a home designer. Our builder has worked with him on a dozen or so houses, and I had two references (one from someone he built for 10 years ago, one for someone he was working with currently) that were terrific. We also interviewed a couple of architects who were great, but frankly, they would have just blown our budgets to smithereens.

After our first meeting with Jim last night, though, I feel really confident that we made a terrific (and much more affordable) choice. He had so many questions and ideas about things I hadn’t thought of, and so many great suggestions that never would have occurred to me. For example, I would never have thought of having an ironing board set-up in the master closet, but really, 99 percent of the ironing we do involves Jay’s work shirts. Also, I wanted a playroom for the kids where I would be able to see them while I was in the kitchen or family room but where their toys would be stowed out of the way. He came up with a great idea that has a small room with open doorways off the family room, so they’ll be able to play in the family room if they want but have their toys nearby, and I’ll be able to see and hear them when I’m downstairs. Bonus: It can be a nice little sitting room or conservatory later.

The only thing we probably won’t be able to do is to have a first-floor master suite. It would just make the bottom floor too giant and the top floor to small to maintain the type of style we want. Jim did offer to design it both ways, but we feel confident after some thinking about it that a second-floor master will work for us as long as it’s planned properly. It will also eliminate the concerns about being a different floor from Natalie when she’s still so small. We are considering leaving a space for a future elevator shaft, or maybe just doing that as an addition in the future, if it becomes necessary. (I sort of like the elevator idea, though, because I am in favor of anything that eliminates lugging the vacuum up and down the stairs!)