our lot - the beginning

After talking to the bank, and realizing that we could afford the house we wanted to build.. we quickly got under contract.  In the neighborhood we chose, there hasn't been much development in the past few years -  partially because of the economy and housing market, and partially because apparently the developer is quite particular about selling lots at or below what they think it's worth.

Luckily, our builder had purchased a few lots (and has since purchased a few more) but at the time only had two other lots available.  We wanted to make some adjustments to our floor plan, and wanted to make sure it (as well as a suitable lot) was still available.

We moved quickly, and I'm glad we did.  We signed our contract to build towards the end of January with a contingency that we wouldn't close until after our first house sold.  This kept us from the terrifying situation of needing to support two mortgages.

Shortly after, about a month later, our house sold.  This put even more pressure on the build and has made us increasingly more impatient.  I think the land was cleared a week before we closed on the sale of our house.. and with the weather, it's been a snail's pace since.

Before -  our lovely wooded lot

Part of why I want to continue posting through this process is because I want to have a log of each step.  It's not every day that you build your dream house.. and I certainly don't plan on doing it again any time soon!

Thanks for joining us on the journey.. from our first nest, through the sale, and now building our new nerdynest.  I'll try not to bore you.. or myself with all the details, And I promise there will be plenty of kitten pictures along the way.

Even Loki loves Restoration Hardware

skinny jeans banking

If you remember.. back in my last post, I mentioned that the house we liked.. was found by searching ever so slightly out of our comfort zone.

Yeah.. more than slightly.

If our comfort zone were yoga pants... this house is skinny jeans.  Like,  maybe with 5% lycra.

We talked to our Realtor.  We talked to the potential builder.  I cried a little bit.

Then, in the midst of trying to sell our house -  with all the house tours and packing and constant cleaning and pissy cat wrangling.. I had to find our W-2's.  I needed to find 3 years worth of taxes, 6 months of pay stubs, social security cards.  I had to find our 401K paperwork, and my checkbook.

We were going to meet with the bank.  THE BANK.  We had to find out if we could financially make this house work.  The builder was willing to work with us, but he had a bottom dollar.

As someone who is not good with money... I always get nervous when a bank is involved.  It's like the dentist.  I know the banker isn't going to do anything horrible.  I know they're not evil..(well.. some may argue with me there). But there is no reason why me, a grown-ass woman with a good job, a responsible hard-working husband, and mutually strong credit scores, should be so nervous about meeting with a banker.

But I was.  I was frantic, and worried, and terrified.  So... I over-prepared.  I made lists.  I ran numbers and crunched figures.  I had everything we might possibly need. And then some.

Right before going to the bank, we met with our Realtor and the builder again.  We toured a house again. We weren't under formal contract, but we were dang close.  The bank was the deciding factor.  We had been pre-approved previously, but had kept to our comfort zone during that process.  That was yoga pants banking.

It was time for skinny jeans.  So we went.  And I was a hot mess. Like, literally sweating.. I was so nervous.

And our banker was chill.  He made some suggestions.  He was nice, and kind, and supportive.  He juggled numbers and shuffled papers.  He made jokes and offered water.  And he made it work.

We signed the contract the next day.  That night online, actually.  We were legally bound to potentially have a house on a plot of land in our favorite neighborhood, pending the sale of our house -  of course.

Oh, and all this.. when two weeks prior -  we didn't even know the neighborhood existed.  

I still get anxious when I run the numbers, or think about the finances, or contemplate going to meet with our banker.  It's a huge financial commitment... and I freak out over buying a pair of shoes that cost over $50.

And this is a house... that we're building... OMG. I'm starting to get a little antsy and freaking out again... 

 Let's go to a kitten picture for good measure. 

Much better. More on the house soon...

three big mistakes

I haven't talked much about our new place.. yet.  Trust me, it's coming.  You'll be tired of hearing about it by the time this is all over with.

We had been looking and thinking about moving for over a year now.  I think I first started looking at listings as a distraction during wedding planning when I felt myself getting too obsessed with the Big Day.  I had always loved the idea of building a custom home, but I thought it was too far out of reach.

I started by casually looking on realtor.com and local MLS listing sites -  we didn't have a real budget in mind (Mistake #1) and weren't really sure what we wanted or were looking for (Mistake #2) and we really didn't have a set timeline in mind (Mistake #3).  However, I think all of our mistakes ended up leading us to a house that I think will be perfect for us for a long time.

Let's talk about these big bad "Mistakes" and what they meant to us.

Mistake #1:  No real budget in mind -  This meant that we were looking at houses anywhere from $100,000 below our (later determined) budget to many many MANY hundreds of thousands of dollars over our budget.  I think this helped us because we were able to see features in the pricey homes that might not be standard in homes in a more modest budget, while at the same time seeing how homes can vary so much for the cost.

Showcase Home -  beautiful but with a dose of quirk.  

For example, we toured a show home that had been featured in local and national magazines.  It was in the "insane" price category, but we thought it would be fun to check out.  Surprisingly, we didn't love it.  We actually preferred the floor plan and structure of some other less expensive houses.  Sure, the finishes and features were lovely -  and there were a few ideas and concepts we've incorporated into our new home.  But a lot of it just seemed to not be a good use of space and just seemed there were odd choices made for the sake of cool design.

It was okay, but as the man said - "Not worth moving for." 

Another example was a house that was about fifty to sixty thousand more than our first home.  It was in a different neighborhood which wasn't as convenient as ours, but had the prestige of a different zip code.  It was also a new build and had about 500 more square feet than our first.  However, walking through we realized that the cost difference was for the zip code.  The house felt cramped and the finishes just didn't feel any nicer that our (at the time) current place.  If anything, it felt cheaper and almost disposable.  That house started us looking into the actual builders of the homes - thinking about the differences between builders and finishes at different price points.

I didn't love the front elevation, but the inside was just lovely.  

Finally, the one that got away - this is the house that we knew was over budget.. not insanely so, but enough that we knew we couldn't afford it within the next few years <cough> ten years <cough>.  Still, we loved it.  We toured it 3 or 4 times.  We brought family to tour it.  They loved it too.   It had a grand, and I mean GRAND entryway.  It had wrought iron stair railings, closets for days, and a massive kitchen.  It became the one to beat.


Mistake #2: No idea what we really wanted - This became much more refined over time.. but when the process first began, our main goal was something bigger.  No specific square footage. No room requirements, really.  Just bigger.

Having no set requirements meant we were all over the place.  We toured lake houses, looked at acerage online, researched neighborhoods in 3 different towns, and quickly learned what types of houses were No's and what equaled a Hell-No.  I also quickly figured out key terms that got the Man interested, and that made him veto immediately.

"Waterfront" =  "When can we tour? How much is it?"
"Acerage" =  "Can it get fast speed internet?"
"Older", "Remodeled", or "Victorian" =  "Nope.  Nope, nope, nope."
"New Build" = "Interesting? How much? Where is it?"
"Big garage" = "Where is it? What does the house look like?"

This helped a lot.  The same went for me.  I was drawn to similar features and I learned that if there wasn't a picture of the kitchen, or I didn't like the kitchen -  it was a no-go.  A TON of houses were screened out due to my kitchen preferences.

It just took a lot of time, and then we got to the point that we were super picky.  Our house wish list became enormous. I started to get worried that we wouldn't find a match.  Or at least, a match within our budget.  But, it also helped because we knew exactly what we wanted.  We could rule out houses quickly without worrying that we'd missed out.  It even helped our realtor when we finally got her involved in the process.


Mistake #3 : No set timeline -  When we first started looking, it was just a daydream.  A distraction.  We started to get more serious around August 2014 but knew we had a way to go in order to get the house ready to sell.  Even then, we didn't want to find something and fall in love.. and still have to sell our place.

Still, we kept looking.  Our focus shifted to prepping the house to sell -  with moments of house hunting.  We found a location we liked, but they had plenty of lots available and the builder (or the realtor rep.) was willing to meet with us frequently as we hemmed and hawed over the floorplans, neighborhoods, and options.

We got our house on the market (finally!) in January and that's when we really focused on the house hunt.  But, there was still time.  We expected to be on the market for a while and didn't want to commit fully until our house was sold.

Over time, we became disenchanted with the builder we had initially been drawn to.  After touring probably 10-15 of their houses, it started to feel very.. similar.  Very same. Very... well.. think of it this way:  It was like the cute jock you had a crush on in high school compared to the handsome intellectual bookish mysterious hunk you decide to marry. Kind of a one-note.

But at that moment, the jock was our best bet.  We didn't sign any papers, our house was still on the market, and I was .. as always, trolling and scrolling on every realty site I could find.

One fateful night, we were piled up on the couch watching youtube clips.  I decided to take a little risk.  I bumped up our budget (we had one at this point) on the app and searched for houses just ever so slightly over our comfort zone. I saw a house listed at a new address, in a new neighborhood I hadn't researched yet.  It didn't seem too impressive at first, but it also wasn't finished being built yet. There were only a few pictures on the listing.. but those were enough for me to do a google search on the neighborhood.

Look at the lovely red dirt landscaping and
unfinished exterior.. 

And then a drive by the next day. 

I decided to show the Man the listing.  We drove by that night.  I think we drove by again the following day. On our second lap around the neighborhood, we toured a house next door that wasn't finished yet -  no locks, so just an unofficial tour.  (We did a lot of unofficial touring in new construction.  A LOT.) It was time to see inside the house we liked.. time to call the realtor.

If I have my dates right in my head.. I think we set up an appointment for two days later.  Something like that.. it was all very quick.

We toured it. We marvelled.  We oohed and ahhed. We felt pretty sure we had found our house.

Well.. almost. 

closing time

In case you want a little 90's throwback.. here's a soundtrack for this post. 

We closed on the house on February 26th, 2015.  We both worked that day, and met up at Mom's to head to the lawyer's office. 

I didn't really know what to expect.  At our last closing, when we bought our house, it was just us and the lawyers because it was a foreclosure.  This time.. us, the sellers, would be meeting the buyers.

I was really concerned about making a good first impression.  I think I changed cardigans two or three times, maybe more.  I don't know why I was so worried.. it's not like they were going to back out of buying the house because I wore purple instead of peach.  (For the record, I wore polka dots and pearls... always pearls.)

Can I just say.. it's really awkward to meet the person buying your house?  Like.. how do you make small talk?  For us.. we just talked about how awesome the refrigerator was.

There was paperwork, but not as much as I expected.  We handed over the keys.. the buyer's realtor took pictures, and we were done.  Time to take our check to the bank and go.. home?

We sold our house. We survived. 

The question is now.. how long do we have before we can be home again? 

studio living

Moving day, February 23, 2015,  was surprisingly uneventful. We hired movers and they made quick work of the furniture and boxes that were left.  Other than some pissed off kitties, I think we all survived somewhat unscathed.

Loki enjoying the "Studio"

Then it came time to get settled into our new place.. for now.  My mother has ever so generously opened up her home to us.  We'll be staying in the top floor bedroom of her townhouse, and trying to stay out of her way.  We'll have a bedroom and bathroom to share, and then an open loft for shared storage between our things and the furniture we had to move out of her guest bedroom.  It'll be tight, but I figure I have friends in NYC living in about the same square footage.. so we'll call it the "Studio".

Through the whole process.. the phrase that kept being repeated was "we can make this work" and "OMG we're homeless" or "babe, guess what.. we're homeless."

Not to make light of the serious issue of homelessness.. but there is something about owning a home, and then not.. and owning-a-currently-just-land-but-soon-to-be-built-house-but-not-yet that leaves one will a feeling of loss.. and slight disorientation.

Inari on neighborhood watch at the new place.

A few things stood out to us that first night in the Studio.. it was hot, and our cats were WILD.   Also.. I'm glad we really love each other, and already have quite a few years of cohabitation under our belts.  Small spaces can do some serious damage to a marriage if you don't really love your partner and their empty Mountain Dew bottles.

A rare peaceful moment.

We still had to finish cleaning up the house, so we went back over for a final "quick tidy."  I left my vacuum and a few cleaning tools there.. and this is where the day started to fall apart...I vacuumed the master bedroom.  Emptying the vacuum canister as I went.  Then moved to the guest bedroom.. and then.. heard a horrible noise.  Guys... our NEW (bought on Black Friday) vacuum died when I had 3 rooms left.  To clean.  After we moved. Ugh.

Seriously.

So.. time to break for lunch, and a run to Target to get another vacuum.  I swear, I only cried like 6 times that day.  Once we got everything cleaned, with our new "it'll do" vacuum, we took a few minutes to enjoy the house together one last time.

We sprawled on the floor of the Master bedroom.. and daydreamed.  About what our new house would be like.  About what we'd miss.. and what living in the studio will be like for the next few months.   We dreamed about our porch, and garage, and basement. About new floor tiles, and laundry rooms, and how to decorate for Christmas.  We talked and laughed about what we hoped would work out and the future freak-outs to come. We sat there silent for a bit.. just watching the wobbley ceiling fan spin.  Then we were back.. laughing at how funny it will be to see the kittens in the new house.. Loki running down the stairs with his belly swinging, and Inari finding her perfect perch on top of the kitchen cabinets.

It was the perfect way to end the chapter of our first home.  In love, and hopeful.  Just like when we bought it.

house mei fun

Our closing on the house has come and gone, we've been moved for about a month now.  But I want to back track a bit so that down the line I can remember what it felt like to leave our first home.. and be homeless for a while.  This whole process has really helped me to appreciate home and the pride and comfort of having a place to call "our own."  Let's rewind back to February 23rd.. a Sunday.

The cats were not very helpful when it came to packing.  However, boxes and paper = best toys ever for the kittens.

I spent all weekend packing up everything.. and I mean EVERYTHING but the clothes we were currently wearing, our sheets, basic toiletries, and clothes for the next day.  Think of it like packing for vacation -  but in reverse.  Instead of packing for the next few days.. you're packing everything BUT what you need for the next few days.

Those last few boxes.. I just gave up on organization.  This is where Adam would come in with his black garbage back technique.  I mean.. I'm not even sure what went in boxes together.  I dread unpacking those.

The boxes going to our "studio."

I remember the triumph of having JUST enough boxes for everything.  We bought boxes from UHAUL (worth every penny) and I think I only had one extra that ended up being filled the next day.

Why did we chose to move on a Monday?  Well.. it worked better with the Man's schedule and it gave me the weekend to finish packing those last few THOUSAND boxes.

Not really.. maybe 20 boxes?  15? There were more on the other side of the room, I promise.

I spent some time just walking around the house.. trying to remember what it looked like before we moved it.  Imagining what the new homeowner would love and hate about the house.  And remembering all the stories behind different improvements.

Like the garage door we replaced after a windstorm. "How does metal just bend like that?  I mean, it's metal!"

Or the navy walls in the master bedroom "Never again.  I am never PAINTING again.  Ever."

Or the teal walls in my office "I mean it this time.. I am NEVER painting again.  Ever.  Who does this?  Who thinks this is fun? I hate this stupid angle-y room."

Watching the cats slip and slide on the hardwood floors, after being used to carpet for so long.

Fussing with my Dad about the black cabinets he thought would look too dark.  And his concession that they did, in fact, look "pretty good."

A shot of Adam's beloved fridge and the arch my Dad built for our cabinets.  It had to be "just so" for me and he made it perfect.   Side note -  I still think the black cabinets were the best fix for our beige laminate befores.

We have so many memories in this home.  I am still sad to leave it.. and we've been moved for over a month now.  But back to the story at hand...


After I cried, and laughed (to myself) while walking through the house, it was time for Adam to get home.  We had plans for dinner.. finishing things off like we started them.. with Chinese takeout.

Adam loves MK's Kitchen so much, she's right below his parents on his speed dial.  Seriously.

Our first meal when we moved in was MK's takeout -  sitting in our folding stadium chairs in the middle of the freezing cold living room.  We decided, Why not? We'll keep the tradition going.  We enjoyed the evening -  this time sitting on our comfy sofa and with the heat running.  As antsy as we were, it was late and we needed to get some rest.  

The next day was Moving Day!

an offer you can't refuse

When we decided to sell the house -  I knew I wanted to avoid being on the market for a long time.  As you probably could tell from my last post, the frenzy of showings and the loosey-goosey of it all was starting to get to me.

Through this whole process, I've had to let go of a lot of my routine.  I like routine, I like planning, and I love knowing what's happening and when.  With this -  there was no knowing.  We didn't know about showings until the day of (most of the time, with a few exceptions).  We didn't know if people liked the house, or how it went (until later.. if we got feedback).  We didn't know how long we'd be on the market, living in limbo.  We just had no idea...

.. it drove me crazy.  But I had to just take a deep breath, and trust.  Trust we'd get enough notice to get the house clean.  Trust that we'd sell eventually.  And trust that the limbo was worth it.

Our experience is nothing compared to what many people selling their homes go through.  I can't imagine living in limbo for months.. keeping your home show-ready for weeks on end.  I think a lot of what we did do differently (moving most of our personal items out and hiring an amazing Realtor - and her team) was worth it to get our house on the market and seen by the right people.

We did get some negative feedback, and it's hard.  It's hard to hear anything critical because it's your home.  We worked hard to turn our little rag-tag place into the nest we loved.  We're proud of it.. and it's easy to get your feelings hurt when someone nitpicks or just plain doesn't like it.

But one of the first things our Realtor said, and one of the hardest for most homeowners who are selling to do, is to try to keep emotion out of it.  We tried to.

But after 25 days on the market.. we couldn't keep our emotions at bay.  After a crazy Saturday filled with chaos, particle board, and a last minute tour - the very next day -  Super Bowl Sunday -

we got an offer!!

We.  Were.  Thrilled!  

We were excited, nervous, anxious, and dance-around-the-kitchen happy.   It was a glass bottle coke occasion.  We toasted, we laughed, we were a little sentimental.

It's been a few weeks, and we're finding out the answer to "what do we do now?" and "what's next?"  More on that soon.. but for now, we just continue to count down the days until closing.  It's not official until the papers are signed and check is in hand!