We’ve had about 5-6 weeks of meetings. Just once a week meetings, but still, with work and everything it adds up. Our past couple have been short information we need to make decisions – the cost of certain woods and finishes for the exterior and flooring. The consistent issue of not getting this information almost made us lose faith in our builders.

See there’s a few things going on here – Building Permit(4-6 week process), Value Engineering/Cost Cutting(what these meetings are about), and the closing of out loan. Our intentions, with a little divine intervention, was to have all of these things coincide/be completed at the same time. Then the next step would be to BUILD THAT HOUSE!

The Building Permit and Loan Closing have been on track, it’s just the Value Engineering that we’ve been waiting for. Like I’ve mentioned in past entries, we’re trying to cut costs. The only way we can do that is to see what things cost and decide if we want to pay to have them now or wait to install them later. There is a contingency in our contract, it says after our retainer is paid we will work towards evaluating and cutting costs(Value Engineering). If we don’t get to a price that we feel comfortable with we can refuse to proceed. If we get to an price that we can live with we have to issue a “Notice to Proceed.”

So….week before last, after 4 weeks of meetings, we still did not have the numbers we needed. All of us were a little confused as to why we weren’t getting them. I had to put in a call to discuss. It’s important to communicate any issues during this process as it sets the groundwork for what’s to come later. They were completely receptive and I felt like we were heard.

Last week’s meeting was exactly what we needed, all the numbers for our line items – with options! Our next step is for us to review with bldgs and come up with what pricing and materials work best for us.