Breaking Ground!

The day has finally come! We broke ground for our new house! Well, actually, the giant yellow bulldozer that showed up on our lot this morning did the ground breaking.



Let me rewind a little bit...

This house has been in the works for some time now. Just over a year ago, Dustin was offered a permanent position with his current employer. That was great news, because we thought we might be transferred again out of state. That would have been the third cross country move in three years. No thank you! So we were relieved to accept the job and stay put. However, we had been renting our current apartment and knew we wanted something more permanent. And we needed to be closer to work, since Dustin's commute is 40 min each way. So the search began. I started looking online at houses for sale. We looked and looked, but nothing felt right. So we toyed around with the idea of building. I have quite a bit of architectural experience and have always dreamed of designing our home. But secretly I thought that's all it was, just a dream. But despite my doubts, I went to work sketching ideas and drafting plans on the computer. And instead of looking at houses for sale, I looked mainly at land for sale. That was a challenge as well, finding just the right lot: right size, right location, right price, etc.

Well, a few weeks passed and I felt like I had come up with some really great plans. But after talking to three different builders, we realized we had overshot our budget. I guess my first design was a little more than we needed. But I really just wanted to test the waters and see what it would cost to get what we want. And as usual, we can't afford what we want. :( But that wasn't the only hurdle. After weeks of searching and driving around looking at property, we couldn't find a piece of land we really liked. So I went back to work on the plans, and kept an eye on real estate listings in the desired area. I managed to shave a few hundred square feet off the floor plan and simplify the plan a great deal. It's really quite a challenge designing a functional and affordable home. In the past, when I would design my "dream" home over and over, I never gave myself any restrictions. Maybe I should have! It would have made the design process a whole lot easier.

After months of refining the plans, we finally felt like we could go back to the first builder we spoke with. I believe this was sometime in November. We didn't have land picked out yet, but felt like it was the right time to get the process going. A couple of weeks later, I was feeling like I wanted to give up. We had looked at every available piece of land in our price range and ruled everything out. Until one day I happened upon a new listing in the exact area we wanted to live. I called Dustin at work and asked him to drive by. I had no real hope of the lot being right for us, but decided he should take a peek anyway. Let's just say that we visited the lot three times that week and made an offer on it the very next week.

Here's the low-down on the lot: First of all, it's only 20 minutes from work! The neighborhood was established in 1975 and is filled with well maintained older homes, and friendly, established families. The first time our whole family went to look at the lot, we met the nearest neighbors and their kids, which are the same ages as our kids! They took the time to chat with us and tell us all about the neighborhood and schools. The deed restrictions are just enough to provide security in property value without being overly controlling. There's a small lake for fishing. The roads are secluded and quiet. It is just over one acre, full of hardwood trees, and slopes up from the street to where the house will sit. The back of the lot levels out and will make a great back yard and garden area. It really is a perfect fit all around. Can you tell that I'm excited?

We signed a contract for the land in mid-December. Then the clock started ticking to get a contract with the builder and secure financing. Talk about jumping through some hoops! And making lots of decisions. The plan went back and forth between us and the builder several times. We were in and out of their office picking paint colors, flooring, brick, light fixtures, shingles, siding...the list goes on and on! It was fun, but exhausting, especially when Dustin and I disagreed on a selection. Luckily, that didn't happen very often. Our challenge was getting quiet time without the kids to actually discuss our choices! Well, it ended up taking three more months before we finally closed on the construction loan. That happened just last week. So we were surprised to get a call yesterday from the builder saying that they were sending the bulldozer to the lot this morning. Whoa! We hadn't even finished marking the trees! So Dustin rushed over there after work and got busy wrapping colored tape around the trees we wanted to keep.

Owen and I drove down this morning (while my neighbor watched Alivia) so we could discuss details with the builder and the grader: where the house would sit, where the driveway was located, etc. We walked the whole lot and talked about almost every tree (it felt like). It boiled down to the grader having way more experience than us at picking out good trees and actually knowing what kind they are. He agreed with all of our selections, but added several others that should stay. He guaranteed me that he would leave us a great selection of trees, and that it would look good. As a fellow tree lover, I was inclined to trust his judgment. By the time we left at noon, he had already cleared the space for the driveway. It was really fun to watch. Owen loved watching that bulldozer smash the trees to the ground.

So now that my blog is all caught up on our house building process, I can rest easy tonight. I am determined to document everything as our house goes up over the next couple of months. In my next post, I will share floor plans, exterior elevations and some of the finishes we chose. More to come! Stay tuned!