Big Backyard Project

Big Backyard Project

So much has been going on in our little world.... Aside from the obvious arrangements that come with a death in the family, we are still working on things around the house. The main problem is that we have yet to actually close on the darn thing and that has brought on so much stress and wishy-washy behavior and that is so NOT my style.

We were working through a credit union, and about a day before we would have been given an actual closing date, their underwriters passed a new requirement that dropped the approvable debt-to-income ratio for Rural Development loans from 55% to 41%. Ours was 43%. Our loan officer couldn't "grandfather us in" and she couldn't crunch the numbers to make it work.

Rant - How irritating is it that my husband and I, who both have higher education degrees, steady, well paying jobs and minimal revolving debt, cannot get a home loan because of our FREAKING STUDENT LOANS, but a Hispanic couple, who the husband mows yards and the wife cleans houses and they have three young children, have not one problem. I am not racist by any means, but does anyone else see a problem here???

Anywho - They slid our loan to another institution, one that has their own private underwriters. After we finally got all of our paperwork completed with them, the Rural Development program ran out of money.

REALLY?

So, as of today, the bill has been passed to continue funding the RD program so we are finally moving in a positive direction as far as closing on our house is concerned.

The only thing we have been able to work on is something that we would have needed no matter where we will end up living. My husband inherited about $10,000 dollars worth of woodworking equipment from his grandfather about a year ago. Until now it has been making its dusty home in our garage at our rent house. When we went into contract on the house we are trying to buy, we purchased a storage building to put in the back yard to hold all of said equipment. So, our yard has undergone somewhat of a transformation over the past couple of weeks:

First, we had to rake a very large portion of our yard. The building is 10 x 21, and the foundation was to be 16 x 24, so we could have a lean to on one side and a small deck to sit on. (until hubby builds me a real one >:)

This is the back left corner of our yard, which very conveniently measures about 20 x 25. And FYI - If your husand doesn't already own one, a burn barrell makes a very exciting gift for any man. If I had know how exuberant husband was going to be when he got one I would have done it a long time ago. (And if you know the right people, they are free. Double yay!)

We spent about three hours one morning raking, burning and bagging leaves from this corner.

Then we started on the foundation, which was of my Dad's design.

This is Prentice (friend of husband) on the left in the white shirt, Chris (husband) in the blue shirt) and Jerry (dad) sitting in the back, supervising. This is them building the first half of the foundation. It consisted of a lot of cussing, laughter and eventually nailing some boards together.

This is the (almost) complete foundation:

We still have to screw sheets of plywood on the top of it to deck it out before we can actually put the building on top.

So that is what we have been able to accomplish over the past few weeks since we moved in. I am ready for a closing date or something so I can finish my work on the inside of the house! I have lots to do and blog about!