Diary:

This series of posts is like a personal diary for our home build…you know the kind with the little key? I’m excited to document our journey, share behind-the-scenes photos/videos, and offer practical how-to advice based on what we’ve learned from start to finish. We did nearly 94% of the work ourselves with the help of family & friends…It was a real b*tch, I mean a B*TCH…but we learned a lot in the process. We’ve lived here for 15 months already and couldn’t be happier.

Because this is my diary and there are no rules, I’ll start this where I want to; there will likely be squirrel moments but just hang in there…if you’re interested in knowing how we survived this build, how you can do it too, and how we are now living happily ever after.

Land Purchase: June 2021

We have lived in the country since 2011 and have always dreamed of owning a bigger piece of property where hubby could walk out the back door, get in a tree, and kill things (deer specifically, but also turkey, coyotes, and the occasional squirrel). We had been looking off and on for property since 2018-2019…we wanted it to be the right fit, location for our work, and a great investment. By June of 2021, we had been looking for 3+ years, scouring Zillow and realtor sites…stay with me here. We often take country drives; while on one of these drives, I randomly make the comment “I wish this guy would come off of some of his property”…knowing that he owns several hundred acres in the area. We actually passed a vehicle pulled over in front of the property, which turned out to be the realtor setting up the advertisement.

Timeline of events:

Monday - I see the for sale sign
Tuesday - Hubby walks the property, in the rain
Wednesday - We scrape some money together and put in an offer
Thursday by noon - We get the call saying our offer was accepted. I wanted to cry and puke at the same time.

Fact: The seller had two full price offers and chose us because he liked our story. A local couple, looking to purchase land and build a home in the woods.

Pictured above: Hiking trek in the rain (left); the SOLD picture - we were very happy (right)

It’s Ours Now: August 2021

We closed on the property in August of 2021 and spent the next year getting things in order.

1) Timeline of build, spoke with original builder, soil scientist, septic contractor

2) Timeline of septic/water/power/driveway/911 Address

3) Timeline of actually clearing a spot for the house

4) Culvert for driveway

5) Contacted bank for loan

6) Insert NEW BUILDER : PLAN B

Fast Forward: Winter 2022

We spent a lot of time clearing a spot for the home site. I am so incredibly thankful for my man…he truly can do anything to include dropping nearly 100+/- trees ranging from 4” to 27” in diameter. Now that total included some wimpy trees that I could have probably fell…but most of these were 60+ feet tall. These are monster trees and he’s making it look so easy…he’s not nervous at all. Only one tree sat back on him, pinched his saw and required wedging - and another one had to be pulled over. I think that’s pretty good considering the amount we had to deal with. I’m 1000% confident, I cheered every time one hit the ground; and I’m sure he didn’t get tired of it.

Timeline:

Feb 26th - dropped the first round of trees (43)
Feb 27th - burned all of the tops
Mar 4th - cut up remaining, felled (7) more
Mar 5th - 8 friends come over with chainsaws/gloves/lopers ready to work

I won’t continue with this timeline…you get the idea. We did this every weekend (and a lot of weeknights) up until…

May 6th - when we had the biggest bonfire you’ll ever see. I’ll share more on this later.

***I took timelapse videos throughout our whole project, so you’ll see a lot of these clips.***

Again…this is my diary so I’ll back track just a bit…

Ghosted - <Insert New Builder>: April 2022

By April-ish 2022, we’ve realized that our original builder has 100% ghosted us. He built our first place, we loved his work and reliability which is why we reached out to him initially. We met with him to discuss floor plan & he gave us a price. He came out to the property and met with the septic/soil guys. It felt like it was a for sure go…but he ghosted. We aren’t really sure why; maybe he didn’t want to do it, he didn’t have the time, or didn’t how to tell us ‘no I can’t do it’.

Simply FYI, mainly for my mom who’s likely wondering (love you, mom): "Ghosted" refers to the act of suddenly and without explanation cutting off all communication with someone, usually in a personal or professional context. It’s also what I like to do when exiting parties…don’t say goodbye, just disappear to bed. ha!

While it was very crushing to be ghosted, it really made us evaluate 1) what we truly wanted 2) how are we actually going to make it happen. After a lot of heartache, tears, and conversation we decided to have a local contractor put up the exterior - get the house completely under roof, closed in and we would finish out the inside ourselves; We would build a shouse (shed-house) in the woods.

This was one of Carl's early drawings of the place....It looks pretty similar today. Thankful for a man who can sketch when I'm having a hard time picturing it.

Heartache: I told you this is my diary and there will be moments when I ramble - this is one of those moments. I want to talk about the heartache for a minute and what I meant by that. We had a floor plan, we had a price, we had a timeline of when the builder was going to make it happen. It was going to be a hands-off process and that all.fell.through.with.no.explaination. It was crushing to try to regroup and figure out a new plan of how we truly could make it happen. Icing on the cake: we had an agreement in place for someone to buy our old place (our friends). This pushed our timeline and theirs. It wasn’t fun to break that news to them; oh by the way we were ghosted, we have a different builder, there’s a 6-month lead time, and we are finishing the inside ourselves on nights and weekends.

Ok so back to it….we’ve decided to build a shouse in the woods. Block foundation, concrete slab, with 2 x 6 walls, metal siding, and a lean-to; all the things. It’s only us two (and our pups), we don’t need a lot of space. We wanted a nice place with attached garage and a spot for guests.

Our original floor plan; We tweaked a bit during construction but you get the idea.

Quotes & Floor Plan: May 2022

With Plan B in hand and our new title as General Contractors, we began gathering quotes for materials and services—despite not being professionals ourselves. We knew that the bank would need an itemized estimate of building cost and a floor plan. We reached out to Kev (Hi, Dad) and our friend Corey, both experienced contractors, who provided invaluable guidance throughout the process.

I can’t tell you how many versions we had of our estimate; it was everything from insulation and lumber to nails/screws/plumbing supplies. We kept thinking of more cost to include and we knew we wanted to subcontract out:

Block foundation material/labor - last minute save by our buddy, Corey; forever grateful.
Concrete - wow…Thank you Erv
Spray foam - a nightmare to be discussed later
Drywall - your house is never the same after drywallers.

The problem with getting quotes is that they are only valid for XX number of days, and the loan process is 30-day minimum. So we had to get new quotes by the time we were approved for the loan.

Our Name is on the List: June 2022

The next hurdle was to meet with the local contractor again, put 30% down on the shell of the building and wait…and wait…and wait a little longer. The silver lining to the wait time, was that gave us time to prep the site, plumb, water, power, driveway, all the things in advance of their arrival.

Before you go:

Before you go, let’s recap the top takeaways from today’s post & keep these lessons in mind as you embark on your own building journey:

be patient when land hunting, it took us 3+ years of scouring
have a plan B ready in case things fall through and know that it is likely the better plan anyhow
ugly cry when you need to
pick yourself up and keep going the next day

Up Next:

Stay tuned for the next post, where we’ll dive deeper into the essential steps of prepping the land for construction. We’ll cover everything from site prep and excavation to all under slab work. At the time, this felt like the most grueling stage of the project. Pictures and videos to come.

How We Built Our Home & Made Our Dreams A Reality