Back to Work

With life getting somewhat back to normal after the "incident", I went back to working on the drawings for the house.  During this same time, hubby and I decided we should probably move to a cheaper home to rent, considering we could possibly have to pay a mortgage and rent while we did the remodeling.  So, at the end of January, we moved east to a dumpy little house owned by UDOT right next to highway 89.

I loved the idea of adding a second floor, and figured we were going to have to replace the roof anyways because of the leaking in the back rooms.  It just made sense to me to take off the old stick framed roof and put back new trusses around the second floor.  So I began drawing again, but felt a brain cramp trying to figure out the placement of the stairs.  After several weeks of rearranging, tweaking, turning, and starting over and over again, I finally felt like I had a floor plan that I could live with.  I printed up a floor plan and met with a couple of different builders. One of them, we'll call him Kevo, I worked for in the past and we had done a similar project in Ogden.  He suggested we start talking to a structural engineer about the possbility of doing the second floor.

Kevo arranged a meeting for me with a structural engineer he had worked with in the past.  After a pretty simple conversation it was evident that adding a second floor was just a beautiful dream.  The foundation may have been structurally strong enough to hold the second floor, but it definately wouldn't hold up seismic-ly.  The second floor could only be done if we reinforced every foundation wall.

Back to the drawing board.

In the mean time, Hubby had researched a couple of options for financing.  One option was for a HUD loan that involved a ton of red tape and extra costs, and the second option was recommended from a friend and neighbor that manages a title company.  She suggested a local bank, which we contacted and arranged to meet with.  This bank will lend for the purchase and the reconstruction costs, which is awesome!  After discussing with them the process and project, we felt they had the best option.