Episode #27 An OCC Update & ITB Wrap Up Our Country Cottage a Narrative

In this episode I will bring you up to date with the goings on at OCC and, as promised, the ITB wrap up.
Finally I can close the book on ITB, In The Beginning. No more confusion with episode numbers and ITB progress month numbers. Hey, it was getting confusing for me.

*******On With In The Beginning Wrap Up******
It was at the end of month 27, (no, lets not go there again) two years and three months, that there was a logical point to finish with contractors, etc. and take sole claim of Our Country Cottage.
Not everything was finished but enough was enough and we decided to cut the cord. As reported last episode, keys were returned and good byes said. Now the only thing left was to pay the final bill, but how much would that be? Changes had been made, there was that bill that was only partially paid by the first site supervisor, incorrect items delivered costing more to install and on and on.
I don’t mind telling you I lost a lot of sleep trying to figure all this stuff out. I had kept notes, records and receipts so I could have gone through it item by item… It would have taken a long time and forced me to relive all the problems we had had over the past two years, plus. I really didn’t want to go there. Everything was still very raw and I just wanted to see the end of that phase of the project, construction etc, and start the next phase, the phase where we start enjoying OCC.
So instead of turning up to the final meeting with the project organizer with a pad of paper listing every item of contention, I came up with an alternate concept. With some of the bigger items in mind I arrived at a figure that I would be comfortable with. It was more of a gut thing. I know people who would have gone through every item, every receipt and done a full accounting so as not do pay one more penny than absolutely necessary and probably end up still unhappy, thinking someone had fooled them to pay more.
I remember back a few years there was this one person who was looking to buy a house and came to me to ask if I thought it was a good deal and did I think they could pay less somehow. Not being a house appraiser or even seeing the property, I asked if the property was worth it to them and left it at that.
Well that’s how my mind works anyways….
I am going to take this opportunity to tell you how the Our Country Cottage project was organized, financially speaking.
There was a contract drawn up with expectations of cost. In all fairness the hard costs for the building package were accurate but things got added and changed which was partly reflected in the construction plans.
Once we had settled on a floor plan and made the modifications to make it our own and once the plans had gone back and forth several times, (I just checked, and we were up to version 5)the final version had to be sent to the manufacturer with a deposit. Shortly after, there was a production deposit. Then the project company, who was going to assemble OCC and organize all the trades, etc, needed a deposit. These deposits were required by the various companies to add OCC to their schedule boards.
The balance of the cottage package was due on the delivery of the kit to the site, there abouts. It was the delivery of said kit that started the “In The Beginning” instalments, by the way.
Soo around the kit delivery month, the well was drilled and paid for and the solar power system required a deposit. A couple of other items requiring money were the septic system and getting setup with a propane tank. A bit later the folding doors between the sunroom and living room and the masonry heater required a financial injection. These were some of the extras I was handling myself.
Back to the nice neat payment schedule that was laid out by the project co-ordinator\ company. These consisted of five payments that would be made on the completion of certain stages,
1- When the foundation was complete
2- When the framing was complete
3- When OCC could be locked