A Sad Separation, but Moving Forward

(Karann) While on our Spring Break vacation in Florida, we did some serious soul searching and number crunching regarding how to proceed financially on our house.  Our bank was on-board with us, however they were quite nervous about us being our own GC (as were we).  When we received the initial proposal and bid from our chosen GC, David Jones, Jeremy decided we needed a second opinion-always a good decision when you are spending this kind of money.  When we returned from our vacation, we met with the 2nd GC (also Dave), and were surprised to get a much lower cost for the exact same proposal (we insisted it was an apples to apples comparison).  Dave (Nugent) was able to find a SIP provider that was much less expensive (by cutting out a middle man) and offered some other minor alternatives that saved money.  We thought long and hard, and decided to go with the cheaper guy.  It was a very sad separation from our first GC who has spent so much time on planning our project, educating us, and sharing green building experiences with us for the last 6 months.  I was especially sad.  Jeremy kept reminding me..."it's business, not personal".  

So we're moving forward.  Our building and zoning permits are ready to be picked up.  Those were surprisingly easy to get.  Our new GC, Dave, has been very good at getting everything we needed for our bank quickly and correctly.  And we should be set to close on our construction loan as soon as the appraisal and title search is complete.  We have a "break ground" date of May 4.  Wow, we have an actual date.  Hopefully, we can start on schedule.