[Bryn-gwlad] couple of question

[Wolfram Gottfried]

Jim DiRocco wrote:
> 
> 1. Does anyone do any blacksmithing?
> 
> While not much of a smith, I am thinking about bringing my coal forge. I need to know if it is legel and can coal be purchased or should I look into building a gas forge after I move down.
> 
> 2. House locations.
> 
> We have looked around Round Rock and Pflugerville and it looks like your neighbors all live about 3 feet away from you. Are there areas that have lower housing density? I use to joke with my wife that I want our next house to have neighbors that were at least out of arrow range :-). While I know that might be a little extreme, I would prefer just a little elbow room.


I tend to lurk more than post here, but I went through this same process
about 5 years
ago in looking for a place to live and thought I might be able to offer
some info:

I ended up out in the far northwest corner of Travis county, between
Leander and Jonestown off a street literally called "Nameless Road" 
This puts me in an interesting tax situation because I pay Travis county
taxes for everything EXCEPT school taxes, which get paid to Leander
school district (which is part of Williamson county).  Its not a big
deal.

Most of the lots out here are at least an acre in size, and even more
importantly there is no homeowners association "enforcing" crazy
restrictions that have nothing to do with state or local law (there are
a few fairly sane deed restrictions like no mining or mineral drilling,
no open trash pits/cesspools, no putting 4 houses on a single lot,
etc).  Most of the houses out here are premanufactured though, so if you
are looking for a fancy multi-level home with lots of marble and ceramic
tile this probably wouldn't be what you
want.  Because of that, property values may not go up as quickly as they
would for more traditional homes, but that (to me anyway) is at least
partially a blessing because it keeps the taxes from accellerating too.

The advantage to me was that the price is about half of what you'd pay
for a development home on a postage stamp lot.  I can't see any reason
you couldn't use a coal forge out here, as long as it doesn't start
grassfires.  I could probably hit the nearest neighbor's house with a
crossbow bolt, but I doubt I could hit a golf ball that far (Tiger Woods
could).  The other neighbors would be hard to reach with pistol rounds
(at least with any accuracy), not that I'm inclined to try that.  We are
on septic tanks out here, so you have to be mindful of what goes down
the drains.  The ground out here would not be great for growing a
garden, but since it is mostly rock and very hilly there is no problem
with standing water or flooding (even after severe rains). 

I looked up the map of where you said you'd be working, and if you can
afford to run the toll roads you could make it there in 30 minutes or
so, it takes me 40 minutes to get further into Austin itself from where
you are looking (I work at the Parmer/Metric area) and I do not use the
toll roads (however I need to qualify that by pointing out I work 10AM
to 7PM - if your company can offer ANY flexibility in hours to where you
can avoid doing 8AM to 5PM it will save you incredible amounts of time,
stress and vehicle wear to do so, and that is true regardless of where
you end up buying).