The First Grant: porch, four front windows, dormer repair, sign restoration, and painting

One of the reasons to get a historic designation is because then you can get funding.  So part one for us was to write a grant proposal for the entire porch.  In Boulder County, projects are eligible for a series of $10,000 matching grants, which means you will personally pay for half of a series of $20,000 projects to get your building restored.  For Boulder County, you can find the forms at http://www.bouldercounty.org/lu/hpab/index.htm.  Our completed form is also in the resources section. Feel free to cut and paste.   For us it took a weekend to write the grant, 2 months to get approved, and then another three years to the building permit process.  Why three years?  Well, one reason was that pesky underlying ground issue and the second challenge was finding a person or company who could actually do and do it right.  And then there’s always the weather. In Eldora, we get about two and a half months of acceptable building weather. In terms of funding, the way works is you pay all costs up front and then the county reimburses at the end. That is after a report is given and county inspection is scheduled; oh yes, and the mandatory 60 day waiting period, which can be longer if your employee identification number isn’t on the proposal originally (which happened to us!), then you’ll get paid, generally three months after you’ve completed that specific project.