Building our Home

A very loose timeline...

• We have known for years that we eventually wanted to live on the lake.  We started casually looking at lake properties about 5 years ago.  We knew it would take time to find the right one, and we were willing to be patient. 

• We had several criteria that we weren't willing to budge on: 
• We had to have a dock.
• You had to be able to jump in the water off the dock.
• The house had to have 4 bedrooms and a garage.

• I wish I had kept count of all the properties we looked at.  Countless!  Although we focused our search on "our" side of the lake, we came very close to making an offer on a house on the "other" side (I'm so glad we didn't!).

• We made lots of offers.  I think we made offers on seven different properties total.  The most memorable was in January 2012.  This sweet little elderly lady wanted to sell her vacant lot.  It wasn't listed -- we just heard about it by word-of-mouth.  We checked it out, got the dock approval, plat, etc, and came up with what we thought it was worth.  We made a reasonable-low offer.  Get this -- she LAUGHED at our offer.  Wow! I'm SO glad we didn't get her lot!  What we ended up with is SO MUCH better!  Who's laughing now?  :-)

•  Last summer we really got serious about looking.  I knew Mason would be starting kindergarten in 2013 and I wanted to at least have an idea of what we would be doing before he started school.  Also, it seemed that values were not going any lower...so the time seemed right.

• I'll never forget the first time I had Graem drive through the neighborhood that I had fallen in love with (that we eventually bought in)...and he made the comment, "this is out of our league."  Then I had him drive out to look at the lake front lots by boat.  The lots were small, but they had GREAT water.  Deep, with sand instead of mud, and views of the dam.  And the more we looked, we realized that most of the lots on the lake are long and narrow.  That's part of living on the lake!

• We crunched some numbers and realized that we could buy a lot and build the house we wanted for about the same as buying a house that needed a lot of work.  I hated the thought of a fixer upper.  Truth is, we are NOT handy.  We are probably the only people in America that don't even watch HGTV!  And who wants to spend their weekends working on house projects when you live on the lake?

• So, in October we bought a lot.  In the neighborhood that Graem thought was too fancy.  We got a great price on a foreclosure -- as in, we paid almost half what the original buyers paid!  It's zoned for great schools, it's in a great location, and the neighborhood even has a pool & tennis courts!

This was back in the fall...shortly after we closed on our lot.

• Also in October we put our house on the market.  Our neighborhood was selling, but not quickly.  We listed our house high, thinking it would take 6-8 months to sell, and we could build in the meantime.  If we got close to finishing the new house, we could drop the price.  Our house went on the market the last week of October and it was under contract by the end of November.  Thankfully the buyers (who happen to be friends of ours -- we had no idea they were even looking at our house) didn't want to close until the end of January. 

• So...in January we moved to the tee-tiny patio home that I bought back when I was single and 23 years old.  I never would have imagined moving back there with my family of 5 plus 2 dogs!!  It has been quite an adjustment.  I'm thankful that we don't have to rent...and that we have a roof over our heads, blah blah blah but yes it is hard.  The thing is that we LOVED our house and we really miss it terribly!  We have 3 boys sharing a room that is about the size of the closet in our old house.  And we have NO backyard.  Being in limbo is not fun.  We aren't settled, and there just isn't room for all of our stuff, even though we pared down to the essentials.  The silver lining is that we are saving lots of money by living there and we are able to do some things in the new house that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.  So we are making it work.  But I'll be the first to admit that it's not always with a good attitude.  :-)

• Back to the timeline.  After closing on the lot we were on the hunt for houseplans.  I had a good idea of what I wanted to house to look like...I have a favorite house on the lake and I knew I wanted a similar style.  It is not a huge flashy house...but it is very Southern, with big covered porches.  And metal roofs.  And a loggia.  To me it just looks like a lake house!  And as it turns out the architect of that house is a former elder of our church and his niece is one of our favorite babysitters.  Due to the shape and slope of our lot, we had a hard time finding plans that would work {sigh}, so we had no choice but to use the architect of my favorite house on the lake.  :-)  Some things are just meant to be.

• The very first time we met with our architect was also the day that Duncan had his MRI.  Those were some dark days, definitely the hardest I've been through as a parent.  Yet Graem and I had something fun and interesting to focus our attention on:  our house.  We were plenty worried about Duncan, and designing our new home was a welcome distraction.  I'm so thankful that God's timing was just right.  It was all orchestrated perfectly.

• The plans were finalized at the beginning of January, then we had to work out the budget.  It has been a long process!  We had the dock built in March (first things first).  Last week the lot was cleared and they will pour the foundation next week!!  Now things will start clipping along!  I can't wait to start seeing some progress!

Here are some pictures from the clearing and grading...





Standing in our basement!