The lot thickens.

We were really having an incredibly difficult time getting any response from the Master's Lane owner. We sent him our final counter offer Saturday night, something we thought he couldn't refuse and as of lunch today (1 and a half days later) we still hadn't heard anything.

Meanwhile, LeAnne was visiting her sister in Concord, N.C. I got an email that a lot I had taken a look at 2 weeks ago had dropped in price from $153,000 to $125,000. That's a $28,000 drop. I drove back over to the lot, walked the lot, spoke to one of the neighbors, and really liked the lot a bunch. The one biggie (or so I thought)- it's in the wrong school district. A school that is ranked 10 out of 10 on greatschools.net, but for some reason LeAnne didn't like because the playground didn't have any shade. No comment. We went over there this evening and I did everything in my power to convince her this was a better lot for us: Good neigborhood (which the Master's Lane doesn't have), a kid from Maverick's class lives on the same street, about 8 houses away, and the lot has plenty of woods around for our kid(s) to play in.

We drove to the school and looked in all the classroom windows. Everything seemed to be OK. We walked all the way around the school and saw a shaded playground in the back. That made LeAnne feel better. We then drove back to the new lot and talked about being able to walk in a neighborhood and let Maverick run wild.

As of now, I had our realtor withdraw our offer from the Master's Lane lot. I just can't the thought of paying that much for a lot with no neighborhood. LeAnne's still mulling it over, probably secretly hating me for complicating our life. The lot will require a crawlspace- which will cause some plan changes. The cheaper lot will probably allow us to build a detached garage and studio for me, which will mean some additional time.

I spoke at length with one of the builders we've been considering, David James. He's a real easy going guy who has built a lot of nice houses. I quizzed him a little about how he builds rafter tails and if he knew about SIP's and how one might use them to show the rafters in a 2nd story room. He knew about the technique and that made me feel like he knows what he's doing.