HI!

On May 9th ..... the framing has advanced to the main floor, and one of the most important things about the house is revealing itself. Throughout this design process, we've talked to people ..... mostly neighbors .... who have told us that many people have looked at and rejected this lot as unbuildable. They come, they look, they don't see, and they leave. We took a chance, and thought that if we could get North enough on the lot, we'd have a great view down the valley to red rock formations, open fields, wildlife, Chatfield Reservoir and Denver in the distance. The wall for the Dining room and the Great room went up today, so Deb climbed the ladder to get a view from the floor of the Party Deck to make sure we made the right decision (not that we'd dump the project at this point anyway!). Here she is ...... confirming that the view is MORE than we thought it would be. It's unobstructed, wide-angle, depth of field, and on a clear day, you can see forever! Love it and glad now more than ever that we took the chance!

It's May 11, 2014 ...... technically Spring in Denver. It's about 40 degrees out and it's snowing! The weather forecast is for 4" to 9" in the Denver metro area, but in the Boulder and Estes Park area (near Rocky Mountain National Park), the forecast is for up to 3 feet! People have been scurrying out to the communal gardens around town to put up shelters for their tender vegetables. There are sooooooo many differences (most of them really good differences) between the West Coast and the high plains area.

Glad to be here, but expecting many more unexpected things to happen!

May 12, 2014 ...... more snow, cold nights in the 20s. Probably lost a construction day to the infamous clause in the construction contract called "acts of god." Deb's out of town, so I'll be pinch hitting for her in the development of the landscape plan. It's the last piece we have to have reviewed by the Design Review Committee. It's an important thing; this HOA does something I haven't seen before. Written into the bylaws is a clause about "construction completion guarantee" and "landscape completion guarantee." Turns out, these are euphemisms for funds that we place in escrow with them to ensure that we do construction and landscaping according to what they've approved. I wonder what happens if we don't ....... can they legally keep the money? I guess I won't be the one to find out since the guarantees are >$20K!

While I'm on HOAs ...... the one for our condominium made some clerical errors and bad business decisions over the past 10 years, and now the reserves are mostly gone, there's not enough money to pay all the bills found in a recent desk audit, and there's no money put aside for the known capital improvements and repairs that are know to be coming due in the next 10 years. With only $10K in the reserve account, the HOA may also be in default on a loan for $400K because of a clause in the loan documents that requires a certain level of reserves at all times. I guess I'll do some research about what happens to owned units when an HOA declares bankruptcy. Not only is Denver a wonderfully cultured and historical city, we are learning about things we would never have encountered in Alameda!