The day they delivered us a home...

[FrogMan]

We moved into our house a little while ago, June 2001 to be exact. It was one of those Modular home they built on a production line, in 4 modules, which they brought to our lot and put together with a crane. We worked a lot on that project my wife and I, not so much physically, but more with our brains, as we designed most of the interior division/floor plan. We submitted them to the modular home company and were assigned a date at which our home was on the production line. One big week is all it took to get all the modules done and ready to ship. They brought them all, with a crane to our lot in the middle of May 2001. I always meant to scan some pictures, and my wife got on me to do that last weekend because she wanted to show them to some friends. It thought, hey, why not share them with my friends, aka you here

Here's the play by play, all thumbnails are clickable


This is when they put the first module on the foundations:



The second one has been put on place:



Putting on the third one:



Adjustment being made to the third module:



Putting in place the fourth and last module:



The final product from the front...



...and from the rear, before we had a deck done.



Fron view again, from a different angle:



My wife's kitchen (I say wife's kitchen cause she decided what was gonna go in there )



And that is the deck, that was added the next Summer:



A bit of bragging about the pool that was added a year and a half later, first viewed from the second floor bedroom window:



Then from standing on the deck:




FM

[Suicane75]

Nice. I like the grass too.

[JeeberD]

I wish I had a nice house. Apartment living sucks...

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Nice. I like the grass too.

Thanks. We got the landscaping done the next year, at the same time we got the pool in. Had to be that way, I don't even wanna think what kind of damage the concrete trucks would have done to the grass... At the same time, we had the hedge of cedar put in the back, I'll let it grow thick and at least 6 to 8 feet high to give us some privacy in the back...

FM

[Suicane75]

Dola, what is thing in the middle of the kitchen?

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

I wish I had a nice house. Apartment living sucks...

Believe me, been there done that. Andrew was 5 when we moved into the house, and I hope he'll grow up in that house for the longest of time. We succeeded in putting 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and a tiny playroom on the second floor, so both boys have their own room, and a TV in the playroom, which daddy can use whenever he wants to watch football undisturbed

FM

edit: err, Andrew was 4 when we moved into the house...

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

and a TV in the playroom, which daddy can use whenever he wants to watch football undisturbed
FM

Daddy needs a playroom too.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Dola, what is thing in the middle of the kitchen?

It's a breakfast counter, with lighting fistures on top of it and the tall white thing is a full size cabinet, in which the microwave oven is hiding. When you put your back to the fridge, in the corner, you are facing the microwave and the cabinet. Hope you can see what I mean

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Daddy needs a playroom too.

so true. We're in the process of finishing the basement. Someday this is where my playroom will be, with a much better TV, nothing like what Flasch is getting, but still bigger than 13"

FM

[Suicane75]

Ahh ok. At first glance i thought it went all the way across and was wondering how you get around the kitchen having to go all the way back around every time, heh.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Ahh ok. At first glance i thought it went all the way across and was wondering how you get around the kitchen having to go all the way back around every time, heh.

yeah, you can walk around it, in front of the oven, or the other way around. We did put a lot of thought in the kitchen. We read a ton of magazines and they were all coming back to the perfect triangle that usually has to be between fridge-oven-sink. I think we achieved a pretty good triangle

FM

[Eaglesfan27]

That is a nice looking house

[FrogMan]

thanks doc

It's not big, but it's our home

FM

[vex]

Pretty spiffy.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Awesome house man. It should really be called a ''Home'' though.

[Flasch186]

thats awesome man!! awesome, I really like the additions youre making/made to the back. Thats where I have high hopes in my house and youve really set a nice bar to reach...nice.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

so true. We're in the process of finishing the basement. Someday this is where my playroom will be, with a much better TV, nothing like what Flasch is getting, but still bigger than 13"

FM

yeah but Ill never be abel to get a pool, so youre up on me there big guy...the TV's and movies are my joy....i cant wait to sit in the hot tub someday and watch Sportscenter...right now the hot tub is nonexistent and all I see out of the backyard is a big 10x10 slab of cement floating in the middle of the back yard.

[finkenst]

here's a house i looked at on sunday...

hxxp://remax.realtor.com/Prop/1042224450?lnksrc=00045&gate=remax

it's big... there's a another room in the basement that has a wet bar (not connected) and a pool table...

only $109,900.. It's in a fairly decent locaiton for this crap town.

[terpkristin]

Pretty cool, FM!


~tk

[FrogMan]

Thanks to everyone who've made nice comments about the house. They're appreciated.

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

Awesome house man. It should really be called a ''Home'' though.

Thanks, it really is our home. Even better when I see the two kids running around. Will be awesome this coming Summer, when the youngest will be able to realize what's going on around the pool. We took him with us in the pool last Summer, but he was only 6 months old. This Summer, he'll be 18months old, walking and all. Can't wait to see him looking at his older brother jump in the pool

Originally Posted by Flasch186

thats awesome man!! awesome, I really like the additions youre making/made to the back. Thats where I have high hopes in my house and youve really set a nice bar to reach...nice.

Thanks Flasch. Speaking of additions, I should try and take some pictures of the shed we put on the right side of the house, in front of the pool fence. My dad built it, with me older boards and putting in a few screws here and there We reproduced the look of the house, but reversing the three windowed turret you have on the left side of the front of the house. My dad amazed me on that one, even more so, they offered all the materials as a gift and my dad, who's retired, built the whole thing.

Originally Posted by Flasch186

yeah but Ill never be abel to get a pool, so youre up on me there big guy...the TV's and movies are my joy....i cant wait to sit in the hot tub someday and watch Sportscenter...right now the hot tub is nonexistent and all I see out of the backyard is a big 10x10 slab of cement floating in the middle of the back yard.

Sorry, didn't want it to sound like a dig on you, more like a wink. You can get whatever you want/can afford for your house. What I was saying was more of a dig on myself for having to watch football on that 13" TV whenever I want to be alone Besides, with two kids in the house now, I know I'll probably put more into the house, and the wellness of the kiddos than in any 40+ inches TV I do hold hope that at some point we'll be able to upgrade the 19" we have in the living room

Funny you mention the pool though. With about 2 months of good Summer weather in Quebec, at first, the wife was saying she didn't want to have a pool, or if one, it would have to be an in-ground one, with a bit of place so she could swim. She used to be a lifeguard and do synchronized swimming in her youth. We moved into the house in June 2001, spent the first Summer with dirt and mud in the backyard, as we wanted to let one Winter pass so the land would settle. The following Spring, we started going after landscapers a bit too late and decided to push back the landscaping to September since we could get a rebate then. Summer had been hot and again in the dirt and the mud, and in the middle of our vacation period, we (read she) decided that a pool wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, got approved for credit and bam, we had this thing installed just before they came to get the landscaping done We'll be paying for the thing for the next 13 years or about, but I decided that it was better to get it installed now, when our first son was 6, and could use it for the next 10 years, than when he'd be 15 and would want to go hang out with his friends more than to stay home and play in the pool. Second to getting the plans done to our exact specs, this was our best decision, imo...

FM

[Loren]

Im just wondering, what does the modular home sit on? is it a regular foundation or basement sort of thing, i know people elsewhere in the country have THOSE things the concrete looked kinda high up off theground soo im just curious...looks great though congratssss!!

and i gotta say, im always sooo shocked when i look at realty from other places so that i cringe when i look at homes like the one linked in Ill. We bought our house last year and got 3200 sq ft in a damn decent neighborhood with a huge ass yard, no reaching across to touch your neighbors sort of thing, golf course is out the backyard all for 98,000.. call me cheap but thats cuz we waited the owner out until he lowered it more and more

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Loren

Im just wondering, what does the modular home sit on? is it a regular foundation or basement sort of thing, i know people elsewhere in the country have THOSE things the concrete looked kinda high up off theground soo im just curious...looks great though congratssss!!

Thanks for the good words. I don't know about where you live. Here, pretty much all houses are on full height basement, which is how it was done for us. Reason why it's sitting so high is that the house to our right (to the left when facing the house) was half way done when we got to pouring the concrete for our foundations. We came to the conclusion with the contractor that we had to jack it up, if only so it wouldn't sit too low compared to the other one. Otherwise, even though our house has about the same height as the one right next to it, it would have looked much smaller if we had left it say 2-3 feet lower. I would guess they could sit this kind of house on about any kind of setting, concrete slab of complete basement/foundations...

Originally Posted by Loren

and i gotta say, im always sooo shocked when i look at realty from other places so that i cringe when i look at homes like the one linked in Ill. We bought our house last year and got 3200 sq ft in a damn decent neighborhood with a huge ass yard, no reaching across to touch your neighbors sort of thing, golf course is out the backyard all for 98,000.. call me cheap but thats cuz we waited the owner out until he lowered it more and more

Realty assessment can be kind of crazy. For example, our house is very undervalued by the city right now, only because it's part of a new development, in which mostly one floor houses were built in before. For now, I ain't gonna complain to anybody about this, simply means lower taxes. Rest assured that the day we'll want to sell, day that I don't see happening for a long while, we'll get it appraised to it's real value.

FM

[Loren]

we're in south tx, basements dont really exist here, and yess im not complaining about or deal on our house either, it was simple fate that we found it, the owner reduced and reduced, no one else grabbed it...fate, upon closing we'd basically already cleared close to 10,000 on equity..gotta love when everything comes together

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Loren

we're in south tx, basements dont really exist here, and yess im not complaining about or deal on our house either, it was simple fate that we found it, the owner reduced and reduced, no one else grabbed it...fate, upon closing we'd basically already cleared close to 10,000 on equity..gotta love when everything comes together

That's what I thought about basement in Texas. As I said here, it's pretty automatic. Wouldn't live witout a basement, to be honest. We put a woodstove in ours and it keeps the living room floor all warm, another nice thing to that house. Can you all tell, I love that place

About things coming together, it's similar to when we saw that lots would be made available in that area. We really wanted a piece of land that would have the backyard in the sun in the afternoon, at least so the deck would be on the warm spot (remember that we didn't think about a pool until a year after we got into the house, so about 2 years after we started getting plans together), so we started calling them about availability of lots and prices per sq feet. Turned out our first choice was already taken, we took the one right next to it. That's when the good news hit us, when we compared the price per sq feet. It was about half of what we would have paid just about anywhere else in the Quebec City area!!! Granted, it's not very near the big city, but I work into the land (not in the woods, the plant is lost in the middle of the woods ) so it fit our needs perfectly.

FM

[Senator]

Congrats on the home FM.

[Icy]

Never saw that kind of modular homes before, in Spain all homes are made of bricks and cement, never from wood and never already built. Anyway it looks really good, specially with the grass and pool.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

That's what I thought about basement in Texas. As I said here, it's pretty automatic. Wouldn't live witout a basement, to be honest. We put a woodstove in ours and it keeps the living room floor all warm, another nice thing to that house. Can you all tell, I love that place
FM

yeahh umm except for that freaky once in 109 years Christmas day of snow we had, we have 70-80 degree winters, MAYBE 60 now and then or maybeeee even a rare 40.. sooo keeping the floors warm is really unecessary here, its 10 am and its already 75 degrees out, if anything "winter" is our chance to have a break from running the a/c 24/7 and having a break in the electric bill woohoo, but yeah i love my housie tooo

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Icy

Never saw that kind of modular homes before, in Spain all homes are made of bricks and cement, never from wood and never already built. Anyway it looks really good, specially with the grass and pool.

Really? wow. That's one of the things I like about it here, we got people from about everywhere on the planet. Thanks for the comments btw.

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Loren

yeahh umm except for that freaky once in 109 years Christmas day of snow we had, we have 70-80 degree winters, MAYBE 60 now and then or maybeeee even a rare 40.. sooo keeping the floors warm is really unecessary here, its 10 am and its already 75 degrees out, if anything "winter" is our chance to have a break from running the a/c 24/7 and having a break in the electric bill woohoo, but yeah i love my housie tooo

hehehe, different place, different temperatures When we got up this morning, temperature was 70F inside the house, cause that's what I have the heaters set for, and it was 0F outside. Yep, big flat zero Farhenheit... Around 10, it was maybe up to 6 or 7F...

We'll keep the house at about 70F all day long, since our oldest son goes home to eat (where grandma will give him lunch), then I'll start a fire when I get home from work to crank it up a bit, say to about 75 for the evening, keep the wife from having to wear like 4 layers of wool, while I go around in t-shirt

I remember how shocked I was when I first went to the basement in Pittsfield, MA, when we lived there. At one end, it was half height, with dirt on the ground!!! Was the first time I'd ever seen a basement without a concrete floor

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by finkenst

here's a house i looked at on sunday...

hxxp://remax.realtor.com/Prop/1042224450?lnksrc=00045&gate=remax

it's big... there's a another room in the basement that has a wet bar (not connected) and a pool table...

only $109,900.. It's in a fairly decent locaiton for this crap town.

Can't comment on price, though it does look like a nice place. Only two bedrooms, but if the basement can be finished/modified, you could have something there. You'll need to find yourself a woman to share the main bedroom and help fill the second bedroom though

FM

[FrogMan]

dola, and I saw it has a fireplace. Don't know how important/necessary it is where you live, but the heat from a fireplace/woodstove is very hard to beat, that would be a big plus to me

FM