Adventure awaits…

…we are building a house!

Hubs and I signed a contract with our builder on Friday, May 13.  It has taken us almost 6 months to get to this point, and it will take a year to build.  

When we sold our previous home 2 years ago, we thought we would be good with staying in an apartment for 5 years while we decided where we wanted to be in our golden years (golden? platinum?).  We came to the decision we wanted to stay right here, and started house hunting about a year ago.  I don’t have to tell you what the housing market has been like for the past year and continues to be—every house we liked was snapped up in seconds or had a bidding war that we wanted no part of. 

The day after Thanksgiving last year, we drove home from my sister’s and I started playing in my studio.  Hubs took his Slingshot for a drive and returned a few hours later.  He said, “I want to show you some property.”

Building a home had never entered my mind.  But he took me to the property and I swooned.  It’s in an area that appears remote but is only about 25 minutes from downtown (where I work) and in close proximity to our basic needs.  The builder that owns most of the lots happened to be working on one of the houses he was constructing and we met with him briefly.  We went through each of the houses he had under construction that were nearing completion and liked what we saw.  

We purchased our house plans in April.  The house will be approximately 2,000 square feet.  I will have 2 rooms that will function as my studio; one room that will be strictly for sewing with each wall set up as a design wall; the other room is a bedroom that will be used for cutting and fabric storage.  It's smaller than I would have preferred, but I tend to see down the road and know that at my age, I need to start thinning the fabric stash 401(k) account and use it up.

About a month ago we met with the builder at the lot to decide where to place the house.  This past Wednesday, Hubs wanted us to go to the lot because the stakes for the house were there.  It was HOT.  We marked the trees that we want to keep along the back of the property line.  We marked the spot where Hubs will stand to take progress photos.  

Hubs measuring from the back of the house to the property line

Standing where our bedroom will be

I’ll share more house details over the coming months and will add updates to Our Home on Top of the Ridge page.  For now, I’ll leave you with a couple of photos; the first is of the lot, the second is the view from the front of the lot to the north where you can see the valley. 

Let’s hope neither of us go crazy during construction.  The day we agreed on the terms, Hubs hugged me and said, “We’re buying a house!”  I said, “We’re building a house, and always remember first that I love you!” 😉

Go make!