Closed on the loan

We closed on the construction loan today. The loan is through Emerald Bank, a small bank in Dublin, OH that tends to specialize in construction loans. The closing felt much different than the last two times we bought houses - there wasn't another set of people we were buying the house from in the room. Just our lender, the title agent and the two of us.

The closing was fairly uneventful. The only part we didn't appreciate was the way the title agency split up the title insurance. In the last two closes the lenders and the owners policies were bundled into one. In this closing, our estimate only had the lender's policy in it, then the title agent did the whole "used car salesman" bit as he explained why we needed to buy the owners policy also.

After doing some research, we believe it should have all been put into the first estimate like our last two closings. That way it was just a closing and didn't have to include a sales pitch.

Revisions to plans

We had the architects make a series of changes to the plans. These were primarily little tweaks like:

• Added 2nd window from the great room to the bball court
• Moved the kitchen wall over 1'
• Updated the upstairs bathroom layout
• Lowered the brick 'skirt' around the house a couple of courses and made the skirt go all around the house
• Added a window in the laundry room

We also had them make the basement 10' deep rather than 9' deep. After visiting the parade of homes, we saw a lot things we'd like to do that needed a deeper basement. Coffering the ceilings, putting the third riser in the home theater, etc become easier with that extra height.