Why, Hello There!

Guess who is back?  Well, guess who is gonna try and be back?

Now that we are settled in to our own place again I thought I would try and pick up this blogging thing.  What better way to start than talking a little bit about our building process and sharing some photos. I'm gonna try and get inside pics this week but for now, you just get outside.

I know some people thought we had lost our mind when we decided to sell our perfectly good home and downsize.  I mean who on Earth with two young kids gets rid of a basement home for a non basement home. I can tell you couldn't have made a better decision. Yes, we lost some space, but we gained so much more.  Our previous home was built during a recession so we naturally got some upgrades that are now considered standard. Our lot is so much better, can't even put into words how important that is.  Our kids had no outside space.  Overall it just feels right.  When your home sells in 3 days, it has to be right.

After we met with a couple builders we decided to go with ASB.  They built our previous home and they made us feel so comfortable and was willing to work with us.  They had never done our floor plan with a bonus room, they listened to us and was willing to try it out and now are building even more.  

ASB has their own set of floor plans so you can't just go in there with some blueprints all on your own but you can customize and change some things. After going over our needs and wants and budget, they picked the floor plan that best met that and we went from there.  We sat down with their standard blueprints, marked them up and moved things and got rid of things and we just kept going back and forth until we all agreed.

They have a set of suppliers they would like for you to stick with which was not a problem at all.  We already had in mind colors and styles we wanted and we didn't run into any problems.  Tyler, who was our superintendent on the job was great to work with.  He never once gave us a hard time and almost always went above and beyond to get us what we wanted, even when I changed my mind 3 times on the location of our cable outlet in our master bedroom.  

The biggest hurdle was before we even broke ground.  Our original lot got sold by the developer to a different builder.  Our builder negotiated with us and took off $5k on our price and added back our covered patio which we had mark off since it was over budget.  It ended up being a total of $13k we got back and our new lot was bigger and more expensive.  The rest of the process was super easy.  They broke ground Thanksgiving week, started brick and drywall by the first of the year and before I knew it I was getting a text from Tyler saying we were about 6 weeks out and I could start our loan process.  We had a walk through when the house was complete to make sure it was all done to our satisfaction- he mentioned it had been 12 weeks from foundation to then.  We never had one single delay and a mild winter was definitely on our side.

I'm gonna share a few pics today and I'll blog more about the process as I post indoor pics.

Front of house.  The brick was one of the first things we picked out. I had no idea what to expect.  We went to to L Thorn in New Albany.  Most homes in our neighbhorhood have stone.  We wanted to save some expenses on other upgrades so we went with all brick.  We picked out a few homes we liked on a slideshow, but really depending on lighting, stone or no stone, mortar color, we had no idea how it would turn out.  Click here for some examples of houses that have our brick.  They all look different.  Our color is Hanson #557.  We chose this color because it was dimensional and not all one color.  

I was so nervous when we first drove by knowing they had started.  It's not like we could have fixed.  Thankfully we liked it.  Also since we didn't get stone, we did a mix of clay and bronze trim.  I would have loved to do our windows in bronze but it was was too much. I do wish I had gotten a bronze garage door, but oh well.    We also added bronze color shutters. 

Our front door is Rocky River by Sherwin Williams. I like that it adds something other than brown to the house.  Hoping to add some other color to it and get a fun wreath.

This is across the street from us.  We are the only completed house in our street.  I do believe most of this wooded area should stay.

View of the back from our backyard.  

Backyard and basketball goal.  The extra concrete was an upgrade through the builder but we got the goal on our own.

As you can see we have plenty of room for playing even off the goal.  It even goes back into a corner.  We went from one of the smallest to one of the largest lots in the neighborhood.

We also have this view, they should be completed in a couple months.

It's been an experience and although I have no desire to move again, I would do it again.  

Can't wait to share more with you.