Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Warning--totally long post today! 

I've noticed lately that when we tell someone we are in the process of building of a house we usually get one of two reactions.
1) Oh, that's so fun! It must be so exciting to make all the selections and plan everything! OR
2) I could never build a house.  Making all those selections is so daunting.  I'd be so worried it wouldn't look right or I'd mess something up. It's just so many decisions.

While mostly I feel like #1, sometimes a sliver of anxiety works it way into my thoughts and I panic, feeling like #2 (is that door in the right place? should we add a window there?), so I really can relate to both perspectives.  In keeping to the true intention of this blog (that it serves as a record of the building process since last time we didn't have one), here's my take on all this decision making.

Let's rewind back to December (ah, that should feel good on a 100 degree day!) when this whole thing started. 

So much colder back in December! Cold enough for 10-year-old boys to play snow football!

Eric said to me for the bazillionth time "I sure would love to live right by the golf course.  I could just jump on the course and play a few holes in the evenings." For some crazy reason, on that bazillionth time, I told him I'd consider it.  However, I was very clear that I didn't want to build a house again--it was entirely too much work.  I even explained that to our realtor.  No building-no way, no how.  Are you laughing at me now?  I am:)

Too much work! Not doing this again!

So, we looked at existing houses and came to the realization that if we were to buy existing, we'd need to remodel for any house to fit our needs.  It just made sense at that point to build since we'd spend about the same amount of money as buying, but end up with exactly what we wanted in all parts of the house.  And so the first decision was made (well, technically the second--the first was to actually move).

At that point, I thought we'd made the hardest decisions (should we move or not? should we build or buy?), but I was wrong! The next step was determining a floor plan and a builder.  This is where our local (twin cities area) Parade of Homes came to the rescue.

This baby is pretty dog-eared from all the pages we marked to guide us through the tour.

We toured over 40 homes, meeting with several builders along the way.  We already knew some of the big box builders wouldn't work (they only build in developments they own and we needed a builder for our golf course lot). While touring these homes, we discovered that we had a really difficult time finding a floor plan that fit our needs.  There were parts of homes that worked for us, but we'd always end up needing to make humongous (read, spendy) changes to the design.  We decided a custom floor plan was the way to go, which eliminated a few more builders.

Amazing kitchen but waaay out of our price range.

Love this middle island but not the tiny dining area

Super cool loft, but uncool kitchen

If you're a 6 year old girl, nothing beats this room!

At this point, we had it narrowed down to 3 custom builders, and a couple of working floor plans. In researching these builders, we learned our top choice turned out to have a checkered past.  The same family had owned another construction company, which had gone under, taking down some customers with them.  Pass.

Then we were down to 2, which ended up being one of the hardest decisions of all in the process.  These older posts review the process we went through to choose between the 2 options:
A Tale of Two Builders
Builder Decisions
So, we ended up with Johnson-Reiland Builders (aka JRB) and another decision was taken care of.  Check.

 

Next we had to decide on a final floor plan. We met with JBR's draftsman and checked that baby off the list, too. If you haven't seen it yet, you can check it out here.

That pretty much brings us to where we are now.  Oh, wait! During the whole choosing-a-builder/choosing-a-floor-plan thing, there was also the choosing-a-lot thing.  We did go and walk the lots that were in our price range with a realtor to help us really get a feel for each lot we were considering and that, in turn, helped us decide on this beauty. Another decision taken care of. Check.

Our lot on the Lane--we chose this one because it's so deep and we'll have a long backyard.

While we have some big decisions done (we're building! floor plan!construction company! lot!), we still have to make all our selections (cabinet style, colors, carpet, flooring, and on and on and on) so we're not to the finish line yet.  To help us make our interior selections (aka, more decisions), I've been gathering ideas on Pinterest and Houzz.  We'll update you with all our selections once we get to that point.

There have been plenty of other decisions along the way, too--financing, how to arrange the move, temporary housing, storage options while we're in temp housing, etc.  For me, the only way to muddle through all this decision making, which has loads of mind boggling potential, is to take it one step at a time.  Yep, totally cliche, but if I think about too much at once I become completely overwhelmed. 

This guy helps!

Another thing that helps is Eric.  Seriously, I have to say here that we haven't even really disagreed on any of these big decisions (yet!).  So far, we have really balanced each other out and when one of us (mostly me) starts to stress, the other one (mostly Eric) provides a good dose of perspective and stress relief.  I'm guessing that being married for 15 years and 357 days has gotten us to point where we understand each other pretty darn well and can offer solace when necessary. 

Tell me, which response did you have when you found out we were building? Are you a #1 or a #2? Next time I tell someone we're building and they respond with #2, should I refer them to this post? Nah, probably just a "It's tough for me sometimes, too" should do the trick:)