Hi everyone! Welcome back to my blog.
It still feels so surreal to say Devin and I built our first home. WOW. In todays post I wanted to share a little bit about our building process and lessons we learned after building our house.
Starting from the beginning, Devin and I originally looked around at houses we’d be interested in buying. All of the options near where we wanted to live were either way our of our price range, or way too much of a fixer upper than we were looking for. We started to realize that finding a house was going to be harder than we anticipated. Maybe we were being too picky, but we knew we both wanted to find someplace that we could see ourselves in for many years to come.
We randomly found a lot for sale that was perfectly on the side of town we wanted to live, and we loved the homey feel of the neighborhood. We decided to go for it and signed the papers. One reason we felt good about building over buying was that we’d get to design our home exactly how we wanted and everything would be brand new.
There are a few things we’ve learned along the way that might be helpful for anyone interested in building a home down the road.
Know what you like
This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but hear me out. Devin and I are not design experts but we definitely knew what we liked and what we didn’t which was really helpful as we made decisions about our home. Since we’d already looked at different houses and builders, we already had an idea of what layout we preferred and the styles that we liked. Having an idea of what your preferences are beforehand makes the process that much smoother for everyone involved and who really wants to spend hours choosing carpet and tile?
Be prepared to visit the homesite A LOT
Our new home is just down the road so it was really easy to keep an eye on the progress of the build and make sure that the work being done matched the choices we made in the early planning phases. We would go visit our lot once or twice a week, and not just to check on the progress. We met with our builders and project manager multiple times just to discuss certain issues, like sewage costs, drainage issues, etc. There were even a few instances where we met up with our neighbors as well! So if you take away anything from our building process, its make sure you choose to build at a time in your life when you don’t have a lot going on so you don't miss any progress of your house being built.
Be ready to compromise
Building a house together can sound all romantic and fun (it is!) but you are still two people who are designing a home together, so compromises will have to be made. Luckily, Devin and I both like simple designs and decor so there wasn’t too much that we disagreed on. There were a few times where he liked different carpet than me, or I preferred different countertops and wall paint. With a little give and take, we were able to come to an agreement that we both loved. Just because we both didn’t get 100% exactly what we each wanted did not mean that our choices weren’t perfect for us or that our house didn’t look awesome.
Overall Devin and I are so happy that we decided on building. There’s something about living in a house that you’ve created from a piece of paper to a completed home that's full of life and future memories. Building your own home is definitely a commitment but is so worth it and so rewarding!
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