Barbers Ink Bastrop County Construction Pact

Last week we shook hands with Nalle Custom Homes, a prominent regional residential custom builder, on the construction of our new home in The Arbors subdivision outside the city of Elgin in Bastrop County, Texas. Nalle is one of the largest, if not the largest residential custom builders in the county, even though their reach extends farther than Bastrop county.

Pictured is me shaking hands with owner Tilghman Nalle (pronounced "Tillman Nawl") in their downtown Elgin Office.

After nearly a year long process, Nalle was chosen based not only on their detailed cost-effective proposal, but also on their reputation for quality and timeliness. Equally important, Nalle was able to help us, in a very diplomatic way, consider material selections and construction methods more prevalent in Central Texas. In other words, they helped us de-California-ize our design concepts in exchange for methods of equal quality, but more appropriate for Central Texas, without making us feel like outsiders.

It also didn't hurt that we were able to visit many of their completed and in-process homes that clearly demonstrated they love what they do and are good at it. Check out the gallery of homes at their website http://www.nallecustomhomes.com/.

Now we're just waiting for our new but larger lot to close escrow so we can start the permitting process. Just think, the first delay is "owner caused"! We are more than ready and look forward to getting out on the parcel and finally visualizing where the house will actually sit.

The picture at left is Karen greeting Owen Nalle. He heads up the company's office and administrative efforts while Lee Nalle (seen with me) keeps his boots dirty in the field.

We are very glad to have found a respected company with a quality resume of well-built homes that added value to our design-build process. We sincerely appreciate all the bidders efforts on our behalf. We know that a responsible bid/proposal takes time and costs money. However, we feel we have made a decision that is clearly in our best interest.

Now it's time to put down the pencils and make some dust!

Living The Vida Local

Karen and I are thankful to be settling into some kind of daily routine finally as the appointments and shopping trips are ebbing. After morning coffee and reflecting on the previous night's thoughts, we have been working our way through a devotional entitled "Amazing Grace, 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions", by Ken Osbeck. It gives the back story for most of the well known traditional hymns and brings back a lot of memories.

From there, one of us takes the lead in encouraging the other to get over to the apartment's gym for a treadmill walk, a very small amount of weights (for me not much at all) and then maybe a short swim. It is of some benefit to be living in a complex populated by young people that work in the tech field during normal working hours, leaving us the run of the facility during the mid-day hours. This avoids a lot of finger pointing and laughing. This routine gets us off to a good start and provides some form of structure that successful retirement seems to demand. From there it's usually, "What's for lunch!?".

We have finally chosen a builder - Nalle (pronounced "Nawl") Custom Homes (NCH). We are very excited to be linked up with them and they will be the subject of our next blog. We still haven't closed escrow on the new lot so we hope it doesn't hold things up too much. NCH is saying 5-6 months to occupancy on the house. We had a great meeting yesterday to review all the details and finalize the drawings. We will meet on the property with the surveyor next week to locate the exact footprint of the house and the route of the driveway.

Perhaps the best news is that I have had a lot of pain relief from the SI joint injection this week. It is the most relief I have felt in many months so I just need to not overdo things. Karen is still doing all the driving but I need to start sitting up to see if we can add a few day trips to our living the Vida Local.

P.S. - Glad to be back in the Library system. Here's a pic of our local branch nearby. I checked out a Bible in Spanish just for fun.

Bloom (or Boom) Where You're Planted

Here is the next installment, in keeping with my plan to post a blog at least once a week mainly about our Texas adventure. Before we left for Austin, I renewed contact with a former beloved pastor, Jim Akins (www.wintervillefirstbaptist.org) by email. I related to him the Reader's Digest version of our family's plan to move to Texas. In his response, he stated that he always thought we had an adventurous family and that we should do well even with the significant difference that Central Texas is from Northern California. I had never thought of our family as being adventurous but perhaps he's right. I think that part of enjoying any new adventure is to bloom where you're planted.

In the construction business, we always found it difficult moving families all around the country for relatively short-term projects. We tried several strategies but nothing ever worked really well, except for one family. Their strategy was that no matter where they were assigned (I remember Las Vegas, NE Florida, Guam, Louisiana etc.) they quickly found what made that area special and jumped into regional activities with great enthusiasm. They found a great way to make frequent travel work for their young family. In fact, they came to look forward to the next assignment, just to find what great things might await them at the next venue.

One of the things that we have found that makes Austin great is the numerous lush city parks. They have set aside over 16,000 acres for 206 parks, 12 nature preserves and 26 green belts. Less than a mile and a half from our apartment is Walnut Creek Park. It's just under 300 acres with six miles of easy trails. So we headed out twice this week and were surprised at finding this beautiful public space right next door, with a creek swollen from all the recent rains. The riparian area well illustrates the indigenous limestone strata that is ever-present in this area. Texas limestone or sandstone will eventually serve as our new home's exterior. I hope you enjoy the pics at our gallery.

After I left the Army in 1978, my first private sector job was selling computers. I often found that when a prospect bought a competitor's product instead of mine, that no matter how the product actually performed, to hear the prospect tell it, it was the greatest purchase decision they had ever made. Sort of the opposite of buyer's remorse. Let's call it buyer's "morse" just for fun.
We don't want to have buyer's morse about our decision to move to Texas. We will either like it or not. It will either work out well or not. But it will have a lot to do with enthusiastically finding what makes this area special and jumping in, health permitting. And it will have an even greater thing to do with the opportunities the decision brings for our children. So far that area looks pretty good.

But I promise...no buyer's "morse" code from me!