Saturday, July 27, 2013

Well, once again I've been away from this blog for too long - but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening - quite the contrary!  We now have 10 of the 18 lots sold and a few associate members who may choose to buy soon.  We have the first two homes under construction and the Common House is also coming along well.  Our first residents will move into their new homes in Oct or November.

We recently took our first community field trip - a canoe and camping adventure to Merchant's Mill Pond.  It was wonderful to have time together just to play and enjoy the lovely woods and waters.  Our next field trip will be in September to the Mother Earth News Fair in PA, where we plan to have an Elderberry booth and enjoy the fair and the many workshops.

Visitors are always welcome.  We especially love to have people come to our workdays at the site on the 4th Sunday of every month from 10-3.  On the second Sunday of every month we have a meeting and potluck dinner and interested folks are welcome to join us for those gatherings as well.

Call for more information!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Common House Progress and First Home

We now have half of the lots (9 of the 18) sold at Elderberry!  We had a visioning meeting in January so watch for our new vision and values to be put on the site as soon as we do a bit of wordsmithing.

We have completed the interior walls in the common house.  This coming Sunday (Jan 27th) we will have a workday at the site from 10-3.  All interested folks are welcome to come!  We are currently working on exterior caulking, finishing up siding and trim, site clean-up, painting (trim and nail heads) and a handful of miscellaneous tasks.  We'll be having pizza delivered for lunch around noon.

We have pricing on our first two homes and it's coming in around $125 per square foot for our "generic" house - right on budget!  The generic house is a very well-built, energy efficient, green home.    Members can upgrade whatever they wish from the generic plans.  The two members who are building first are currently in the process of being pre-approved for their mortgages, and then we'll be ready to break ground!

In addition to all the progress at the site, we continue to have monthly meetings to begin to design how we will live, work and play together.  2013 will be a very exciting year at Elderberry!!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Interior Walls and Building our First Homes

Wow - it's January already!  Even though we didn't post around the holidays, there is truly a lot going on!  We put up the interior walls of the common house and now we can really get a sense of the space. The multi-purpose rooms are both of a good size and the kitchen looks huge!  This coming week we will finish walls, ceilings and sun tunnels (if all goes well!).

We expect to get pricing on our first homes very soon and start construction in the next couple of months.  We're also planning on getting grading done for the whole site and getting the utilities in soon.

Tomorrow we have a day set aside with all of our members to do more work around our vision and values.  We will also take some time to walk around the site and talk about where we want to put things like the pool, pizza oven, blacksmith shop, hot tub, etc.  We have a great wish list!

Happy New Year everyone!!