As promied, the story about how we ended up moving on to the farm in October!
We closed on the property November of 2020. We were soooo excited. Little did we know that it would take almost a whole year before we would actually move out to the farm. We bought a lot model home in January of 2021 with the promise that it would be delivered by March. Honestly, the face that it was a lot model was one of the reasons we bought the house. We wouldn’t have to wait for it to be manufactured. The lease on our rental ran out in February so we figured that a one month extension wouldn’t be too bad… right?!
We waited and waited and waited for it to be delivered. We had our driveway to the site made. We asked that someone come out and look at it and make sure that the site could be accessed by the delivery team. No one came. We asked that any of the subcontractors hired to prepare for the delivery of our home would contact us so that we could be on site to show them where we wanted to house. That did not happen. Finally, when we were out to work on the property one day!! We saw that we had footers! We wrote our names in the concrete! Progress!!!! We were so excited to see any kind of progress that we didn’t notice that our stakes had been moved.
Steve went one day in April to feed the animals and discovered that the house had been delivered. Yay! except they didn’t put it where we wanted it!!!!! WHY!?! (See above paragraph) The stakes had been moved. We just want to live in our house and not have to pay all the money for rent and not waste time driving 30 minutes to the farm and 30 minutes back each day. And we want to start living our dream!!! Soooo frustrating.
And now, because the footers were placed incorrectly, the house was set in the wrong spot, and the house is WAY high above the ground. I never wanted to live in an ivory tower and I definitely don’t want to live in a tower shaped like a double-wide.
Now I have to say, not all of these circumstances (especially the delays) were the fault of the dealership. We were at the beginning of COVID shutting everything down, so all the things were slow. The fact that everything was slow made the mistakes that were actually the fault of the dealership even worse.
We had to wait on an engineer to come and inspect the piers because the house is so high off the ground. After the engineer looked at it and told the dealership what they had to do for the house to be safe, we had to wait some more for someone to come and fix the piers and add bracing.
Finally, finally, finally at the beginning of OCTOBER—- the house was turned over to us. YAY!!! except we still didn’t have electrical or water!!!!!!! I’m certain that the dealership was just as tired of dealing with us as we were with them. We took over the responsibility of putting the finishing touches on the house. Steve is a contractor after all, we can handle it. All of the things were in place, but none of it was connected!!! The well had been dug, but we were waiting for the well pump to be shipped from California! We had to wait for the electric company to inspect all the things and turn on the electricity! We had somehow landed on a week that every lineman was on vacation and our house was not the priority. WHY!!!!!! We just want to move in!!!!!
By the end of October, we had electricity, but the water was still not working! We had to move out of the rental… we could not afford to stay there any longer and we had already given them our 2 month notice that we would be leaving. So we moved! We hand to use gallon jugs of water from the store to fill and flush the toilets. Gallon jugs of water to cook and clean and drink. Borrow friends showers, cause it’s super hard to shower with a gallon jug of water. Soo many gallons jugs of water. Can you imagine how many gallons of water you would have to use for 6 people to live somewhat comfortably for a day? Multiply that by a week! I can imagine it, cause I lived it. And I am here to tell you that it is not fun.
The special thing about October is fall break. WELL, this fall break it was just Steve and I going for a vacation. The younger kids were with their dad and the older kids had college classes they couldn’t miss. It was supposed to be a fun time for just Steve and I; we had been looking forward to it for MONTHS.
The well pump finally came a week before we were to leave for vacation. We had to get it set up so the kids would have water while we were gone. We were able to make it a week without water, but we weren’t willing to make the kids live like that for another week while we are on a beach. Unfortunately, it rained and rained and rained every single day that whole week. It seriously delayed how much could be done get get everything properly installed.
When the day came that we were suppose to be leaving for Florida, we had to delay the trip. Then the day came that we would need to leave for our delayed vacation… and we had to delay again. Fortunately, I had the time off so it didn’t mess with work, but we ended up losing a day of vacation we had already paid for.
The whole experience made me want to just give up. I didn’t even care at that point if we lost all the money we paid for the condo and not go. Steve was adamant that we were going, because we needed to relax. And I’m over here like….. How in the heck am going to be able to relax? I have farmxiety!!!!
It all worked out, mostly, I was so twisted up in knots though. We took it right up to the wire and finished the water situation the day we left for our second-time delayed vacation. We left for Florida at 7pm, drove all night to the condo, and sat on the beach for 4 days.
Never, ever, ever want to go through that again
“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind”
