Mr M is most ingenious.. he created a large to scale, diagram of our plot, and covered it in clear plastic so we could draw on it etc.. and we had cut outs to scale of the house and garage - the idea being that we could decide where we want to place our house! we need to know this before we can submit our plans to the planning office. So we spent a couple of evenings coming up with different ideas and once we had decided in principal where it was going I left Mr M to get down to the nitty gritty of distances from property lines etc.
He has also been busy speaking to planning departments and septic people and road/driveway permit people and power people and people who are far wiser than me etc..
Finally this last weekend we went back down to Port Orford. We have had my parents to stay so took the opportunity to go down and stay a few days, show them around, and meet with a contractor etc. It was a brilliant trip, not only because we finally got to see our plot again and see it is real, but also we got to measure everything out, and decide if our plans are feasible for where we want to place the house etc.. so we will make a minor change to placement of the house so we don't overlook our neighbors too much and then we are good to go on plans submission.
Oh and the sun shone the entire weekend and so we got to do some fabulous beach walking too!!
We got to meet with Joe, who is a groundwork contractor, he will be clearing the land for us, digging out the area for the septic and putting in the culvert and driveway etc... seems everyone knows everyone down there and his nephew is someone we might be working with to get our garage built. Betty our Realtor told them all about us crazy English people :) I think she is going to be a very useful person to know down there.
First things first, "Joe the Contractor" will be going into our plot through whatever space he can find, with his "bobcat" digger, and he will dig out 2 trenches. Then the "County" will go in and test the soil etc. and determine what type of septic system we need - *fingers crossed* it is standard as if it is a sand filter type then $$ "ching ching"... once that is determined the fun begins.
This is how thick the brush is getting into the plot - but I am sure he will find a gap somewhere :)
We will be going back down in a month or so when "Joe the Contractor" is ready to clear the trees, we will tape and mark the area we want cleared, we are planning to leave approx. a 10 - 15ft border of trees around the entire edge of the property, depending on garden etc.. so we need to make sure he doesn't get carried away :) he will also put the culvert over the ditch allowing us to gain an entry and put in the driveway (more permits). When he clears the trees he takes out all the roots etc.. and if it is done before June he can burn it onsite, after June the burn ban will be in place so it will all need to be removed out, and again that costs more money.
We need to know where the septic is going to be placed before the land is cleared as apparently when clearing that actual area they need to just scrape it and leave as much natural soil as possible, rather than just gouge their way through.
Hopefully we have quite a bit of merchantable timber on our land, once the trees are down they will cut them to size and strip all the branches off, the local mill will then come in and remove the logs and then we get paid by the mill for our timber :) BARGAIN!!
So that is the plan forward, once it is cleared we can then think about getting our well dug for the water (uphill from the septic), and the power connected and then the foundations for the garage and funds depending we might get the garage built - so it can be my place of residence whilst Mr M is doing the house, he knows how to spoil me for sure!!
Me, Mr M and "Joe the Contractor" discussing all the intricacies of the Grand Design!
Hopefully you have enjoyed this little update... stay tuned as another update will be along in a while!
