House Update I

I thought it would be a good time to give an update on how the house is coming along. Well, it finally is starting to look like a house. They have been framing and I am getting excited to see it take shape. The second story has just started to be framed and the roof still needs to be framed. It has come a long way from the piece of dirt we have been looking at for a while.

It all started when we found this lot. We actually had money down on another lot with another builder. Mr. Whitelane and I had stopped by this model home and weren’t very happy with how the sales lady treated our children. I walked out and never wanted to go back. However, the same builder was in another location not too far away and we stopped in to see that model home. We really already had a lot and were just looking to get ideas at the model home. Except the sales lady at this model home location, was sooooo much nicer and friendly to our kids (we only have 2 by the way so it’s not like they are a handful or wild). She started talking to us and we were upfront with her about just being there to look because we already had a lot. She showed us a house that someone else was building in the neighborhood. It was a lot like some of the things I was envisioning for our house (color scheme wise). It didn’t have all of the things we were hoping for (like two story living room ceilings) BUT we could see the 9ft. ceiling working for us in this floor plan. Look at the medium wood flooring, the white cabinets on white walls and trim…you know I love white.

After seeing this we walked back to the sales office and my husband told her about our experience with the sales lady at the other location and how that had turned me off to this builder. She then assured us that we would never have to work with the other (mean sales lady) again and would only be working with her (nice lady). We went over some of the different options and floorplans. The main thing for Mr. Whitelane was the lot size. He wanted a half acre or close to that. Turns out that someone had JUST backed out of an almost half acre lot at the location we had previously visited (where the mean sales lady was). We immediately went to look at it and knew that this was where we should build. The lot and location were everything we wanted. And turns out that mean sales lady quit not too long after (guess she hated her job and it showed).

 

So we got out of the lot with the other builder asap and were happy to find this lot (bonus the mean sales was gone now too). We picked a floor plan that was not everything we wanted. They only offer certain floorplans in certain communities. We wanted to be in this certain community because we loved this large lot. So we can’t have our cake and eat it too 🙂 . However, as time went on I really learned to love the layout of the floorplan we picked more.

After many design center appointments, they finally sent our plans off to the city to get approved. Then we got them back rejected. So we had to tweak a few things and send them again (with approval this time). Shortly after that this lot of dirt started to be dug. It’s amazing how exciting a hole in the ground can be. After everything was dug they then put the footings and basement walls up, which was again so exciting for us. We just love documenting and taking pictures along the way of this journey. Once that was done they backfilled around the basement concrete.

That’s when the good stuff finally started happening. Framing. It’s only been about a week since the framing started. It is so neat to finally see a house start to form. Trust me I have already been there measuring out where I want certain furniture pieces 🙂 . So that’s where we are for now. Don’t worry, I’ll be posting more updates as progress happens at the house.