0 Emily

First, I'd like to acknowledge that some of you have tried to sign up for notifications via email from this blog (thank you!), and at least some of us have had trouble with it.  I did some research into why it doesn't always work and did a thing that resulted in my first email coming through, after I'd already made several posts.  I also note that when I embed a GIF, that doesn't show in the emails.  Sorry about that.  Maybe take the emails as a cue to check the website?  Anyway, if you're having trouble, please let me know and I'll try to help.  It really does help ease my mental squirrels to know that people are listening to me.  It's in my best interests to help you read this blog!

We tried in Invisitable Lands to see 0 Emily Dr.  We didn't because of the ever present sign kinda' like this one:

And also because of this:

But it was a reasonable price (seemingly), and in Jamul, and there was another road to get to it... so we decided to try to see it again.

Today we took the mildly named Lawson lane.  I have nicknamed this street, which looks ok on a map, Lose-My-Lunch Lane.  

We passed much better named streets, like Sleepy Hollow Lane.  We also passed a mailbox that looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame with 4 horse shoes on it.  I don't know what horse they had to knock over to get those, but I really believe that it should be forced to live on Stupid Mailbox Rd.  

Obviously, this property wasn't at 0 any road.  They like to tell you that it's on #0 and plot 0 probably just to mess you up.  But luckily, Emily Drive isn't very long.  We soon spotted the Century 21 sign and found a place to pull over amidst the other NO TRESPASSING- WE MEAN IT! signs.  

Here we were faced by an impenetrable wall.

I was about to get down to the dog's level to try and crawl through the roots when Chris suggested we trespass slightly and see if there was a way in through the neighbor's driveway.  Turns out the neighbor's exceedingly private property driveway is also the driveway for this property.  

The land is definitely not cleared and would need a lot of grading to make flat if we weren't going to build right up on the road.  It's a narrow slice of land, with neighbors close on both sides, but it goes back quite a ways, which is how it's 5 acres.  Preference to build back so you don't have neighbors in your space, but that would take a lot of work because of the valleys and shrubs.

Sadly, south faced the road so we wouldn't be able to have our home face the pretty view you see in this second picture.  It would be more the first picture view.  The last one here is the other neighbor.  Images in this view are way closer than they appear.

There was this cool red tree that we really liked and agreed couldn't be chopped down.

See how close the neighbor is?

We were just discussing grading permits when an older white man with two shovels wandered up to the fence.  He said his name is John and he's been building his home for the last 30 years and he's a cancer survivor and are we thinking of buying this land and we shouldn't offer full price and there's no well and he's thought of buying this land and do we want to come over and see his home?  I don't think John gets out much.  He was quite a talker.

John did indeed have a beautiful home and surrounding area.  He'd clearly put 30 years to good use.  It was largely xeriscaped with levels and little cozy spots for tables and chairs around little bends and with great views.

John talked and we gleaned some difficult information, like that to drill a well we'd have to go down about 900 feet, and he felt it would cost between $30-$40K.  And that's just for a well!  The grading and clearing would be quite a bit too.  Suddenly, the mostly reasonable seeming $125K seemed less reasonable.  So John was useful though when the dog got an ant bite on his foot, we were glad to make the excuse to run away.

We navigated the twisty, nauseating road back and decided to ask Adam if 15499 Skyline TT is still available.  We both really like it, the view is mostly behind where we'd have the house face, but it has a well, two pads, and possibilities.  We're learning that buying everything we need in the land at once, will probably be much cheaper and better for our mental states in the long run.

Monday I will start contacting more banks to ask about financing.  

Also, Chris found a company up in OR that builds tire bale homes and supposedly has licensed architect-y people in all 50 states.  They responded in a largely confusing way to his email but possibly, we can have them draw up our plans.  They said something about having a meeting between us, themselves, and the local permitting office.  They made it sounds almost like it wouldn't matter if tires aren't on CA's list of approved building materials if an architect signs off.  We sure hope that's the case.  Otherwise, we're looking at amending CA's building codes/laws.   Urgh.

*EDIT* Chris tells me that he's told me many times, it's not an architect who needs to sign off on our build plans, but a civil engineer.  Wah-wah.