FirstDayCottage Community

We were fortunate enough to be welcomed into three beautiful FirstDay Cottages at various stages of construction and levels of finish. Above are pictures of a nurse's home under construction in Drewsville, NH. We also ventured to Nelson, NH for generous tours of Rich Popovic's Little House on the Hillside and Alison Aldrich and Hunt Mitchell's home Tamlin. We were inspired by the many special touches and beautiful finishes built into Rich and Anne's four year old home and have chosen a version of the FirstDay Cottage laid out much like Hunt and Alison's. Hopefully we can one day return the favor to those looking to join the FirstDay Cottage community.

Let the fun begin!

We have remodeled a couple of houses at this point, but this is by far the biggest endeavour we have taken on yet! I'm going to do my best to keep my posts on our progress up to date, but I foresee having my hands full from time to time.

We've made a couple of strides in the right direction that I thought I'd share. The first is that we've decided on a style of home and have put a deposit with an architect/house kit company located in Walpole, NH. We toured several homes at various stages of construction and have decided that we love the concept and feel of FirstDay Cottages. I've been sketching drafts of the home based on their concept and it should be a few weeks before our design is complete.

We also completed the plans, applied for and received our wastewater permit from the State of Vermont. Permitting is my profession, but our consulting engineer deserves credit for making the process easy. Highly recommended by a friend, Jason Waysville of Waysville Engineering in Springfield, VT gave me a fair price, set me up with his father who dug the test pits with his excavator at a reasonable rate, and turned around a design and application very quickly that breezed through the state review process. He also recommended a couple of local excavation contractors that are leading contenders for that work.

Once we have our foundation plan from the architect, we're going to review final bids for the excavation work...

We Own Land!

After several months of budgeting, figuring, and hoping, we were able to purchase 6.19 acres of land from my Great Uncle Vinny in Chester, VT. Many, many thanks to my Uncle Ed & Aunt Carolyn, my Uncle Chuck, and my Grammy Shirley for their assistance. Without them, our young family would not have been able to navigate the financing gauntlet that impedes the path toward our dream of building a home. Our land is across from my grandmother's house and was part of the large parcels once owned by my great grandparents.

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Also, much gratitude to one of my oldest friends Josh Nichols of Nichols Building in Windham, VT for his expertise as we tried to figure out if this can happen. Josh will be working with us throughout the project, so more information on Nichols Building to come.
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Our attorney friend Eric G. Velto, Esq. came with us to the land after our closing for the photo opportunity. We're thankful for his fair and generous assistance with the transaction. Help us repay his generosity by requesting his service at:

Massuco Law Offices, P.C.

90 Westminster Street

Bellows Falls, VT 05101

(802) 463-3303

eric@massucolaw.com

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