Day 9 - December 28

Yesterday, Don went out to the homesite in the middle of the afternoon to take some pictures. He sent all 31 pictures, and I flipped through them pretty quickly because, honestly, the piles of dirt and big holes in the ground kind of all looked the same to me. It had been difficult for me to see real progress, mostly because I don't understand everything that's going on in this step. This picture is from yesterday, Day 9, but you could've told me it was from Day 4 and I would've believed you.

And then I came to this picture, and thought, "oh hey - those look like real walls!"

And then, this one. The window in the basement bedroom! It's just like it's a real house!

I've told Don and others that even thought I know this will be our home, it hasn't felt real to me. Yes, we picked out every little detail and I think I could draw out the floor plan, to scale, from memory. But it hasn't felt like the home where we'll be living. I haven't been able to picture myself driving there after work, cooking dinner on the stove we chose, or sitting out on the upper-level deck as the sun goes down. It hasn't felt like ours. It's almost felt as if we've spent months designing a house for someone else to live in. And somehow, that picture of the basement window got me a little bit closer to believing that it's ours.

December Update

While we'd hoped to be "under roof" by Christmas, that just didn't happen. The delay was the fault of both us and Estridge. Several weeks ago, we had a meeting with our builder, who assured us he'd be in regular communication with us about the digging schedule, a few simple changes we'd requested, and next steps. Unfortunately, that didn't happen the way we'd expected.

Our biggest concern was that the angle of the house on the lot. We didn't see the plot plan until after we were on the schedule to begin digging, and we weren't happy with it. We decided on the homesite that we did because of the water view (among many other factors), and it was important to us that our home face the water rather the back of another house. It seemed like common sense to us, but apparently not to the surveyors. After several rounds of edits and negotiations on the cost of rotating the home a few degrees, we were satisfied.

After much deliberation, we also decided to have them rough-in the electrical and plumbing for a washer and dryer in an upstairs closet. I've spent more time than I care to admit reading up on both sides of the argument for or against second-story laundry rooms. Ours is on the main level, just off of the garage. But, just in case we may want it upstairs someday, we'll be prepared.

So, with all of the decisions made and agreed upon, we waited for the weather to cooperate enough for us to start digging. We had intentions of sneaking out of work and being there for the first breaking of ground, and we thought that was made clear in our meeting with our builder in November. But, on December 20, we discovered largely by accident that there was giant hole in the ground on our lot.

I had a lot going on at work last week and wasn't able to get to the homesite until later in the week (one of the biggest downfalls of building in the winter, we've learned, is that it gets dark so early and there's very little daylight outside of working hours), so I relied on pictures that Don took on his cell phone.

Day 1 - Dec. 20, 2010

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4 - This is the first I'd seen it in person.

Day 4

Day 8 - Dec. 27 - We have basement walls! Or least forms of walls.

Day 8

Now that it's actually starting to be more than a giant hole in the ground, I'm excited to see the day-to-day progress and expect to updating here more frequently. Meanwhile, we're staying busy with showings of our current homes and contemplating how we'll use the (very generous) gift cards we received for Christmas. Ceiling fans? Shower curtains? Bar stools? So exciting!

An Update

I hadn't really intended to let this sit for the next six weeks. It's been a pretty crazy month and a half. There were times when we were ready to walk away from the whole experience and hole up in a one-bedroom apartment somewhere. Building a house is overwhelming. It's stressful. And while picking out cabinets and doorknobs was exciting, and determining where all the electrical outlets should be was a little bit thrilling, the process as a whole has not been what I'd call fun.

When you're faced with a wall of carpet squares and told to "just pick one" - it makes my head spin:

We did ultimately make our selections, and we feel good about them. See? Look how happy he is!

So, here we are. One hundred percent on board with Estridge and moving ahead with full steam. We're on the schedule to break ground sometime later this week, or maybe early next week if the rain doesn't make its way out of here pretty quickly. And since there's soon to be a giant hole in the ground, we thought it was important to go out and take some 'before' pictures.

This was taken about a month ago. See? I'm excited!

This is our staked lot, taken mid-November

Another angle ...

And finally, our street.

Isn't Indiana in November beautiful? Blech. I can't wait until everything is green again!

Finally, because it's timely, check out our turkey! It was every bit as delicious as it looks!

Here we go!

We really should've started this blog six months ago, when on a chilly Sunday afternoon in April with nothing better to do, we ventured out into a local Parade of Homes tour where builders were showcasing their models and trying to drum up new business. Casually perusing model homes somehow turned into several hours of chats with sales people, looking at available lots in several neighborhoods, and coming away with folders full of floorplans. That afternoon led to lots of late-night conversations around "is this something we want?" and "is this the right time?" - the answers were always yes.

Fast forward to today, and we're just a few steps away from breaking ground on the home that both of us have imagined. To date, we've put holds on four different homesites in three different neighborhoods, only to be outbid, told the home we chose to build wouldn't fit on the lot, or decide that it's really not where we wanted to be. We're confident that things worked out the way they were supposed to, because we could not be happier with the homesite or the neighborhood we've finally settled on. It wasn't one we'd originally considered, but it is exactly what we've been looking for all along.

There's lots more to come on the house itself, decisions we've made and will continue to make, people who have helped us through this process, and our excitement and frustration along the way!