What's so stressful about building a house.....

So, we are ever approaching our closing date on our current house, which means we will no longer be owners of this cute sweet home that I've called mine for over the last seven years,witnessing my little babies grow into elementary kids.
It's hard, harder than I thought - I love my house - I love my neighbors, I love walking to the park, I love attending the Fire Department's pancake breakfast, I love being close to my parents home, I love watching the parade and sitting in my driveway to see the fireworks. I love being part of this community and I'm going to miss it, but I don't second-guess myself (unless it is my intuition).

And I can't say that there wasn't anyone who didn't try to warn me - I got plenty of those, I guess I thought maybe it would be different and consider we haven't even settled on a builder, I can't even say we have gotten into the worst of it, because I know that is to come, but man has selling our house, trying to find a builder and then trying to find another place to live (which thankfully my step father-in-law found us a great place, the landlords are pretty great too) has been so stressful already. And then the budget...dun, dun, dun!
We've contacted four builders and to date, we have had two quotes - one was $100K over our budget and the other is at our budget and we really like this builder, but the house footprint is too big. I don't want to spend over a certain amount, and the hubs wants bigger bedrooms, but all of it puts us in a locked position with square footage, type of house, etc....So then it makes us ask can we build the house we want under this budget?

I think we can, but I may be the only one that thinks so....and this current state of unknown, drives my hubs crazy. He wants to know there is a plan and I on the other hand believe if it is meant to be, it is meant to be - doors open in some places where others close. My husband talked about general contracting it himself, which at one point was an option we discussed with our bank and they approved, but does he have the time to do it and no, not really, but I keep circling back to maybe that is the only way.

Well....to be continued....

First Budget Find

We were strolling through our local Lowe's when I saw one of the associates place this great find on the clearance shelf - I quickly walked over because I love a good bargain and couldn't believe my eyes.

I quickly yelled over to my hubs and said, we have to get it - we didn't care that we don't even have plans for the new unbuilt house, but we did know that we want it in the house.  And seriously, $180 fan for $30, is definitely my kind of find.

One thing I hope with this building process is that I will come across other finds, unique items and other materials that we can incorporate into our house. We want to use pallet, salvaged material, barn board (if we can find it), and if we can get it discounted, even better. We are budget minded and reusable material type of individuals. We created our entire landscaping in our soon-to-be previous home out of entirely salvaged, Craigslist, old wine bottle, donated and more finds. We are not afraid to think outside of the box (sometimes this can be scary and sometimes it is beautiful) and I feel like I can still have this mindset even with building a new home.

So, if I find it for the house, I will post it.

Found a lot....

So, we purchased a lot with the hopes that we can build - this is my first post on this adventure of ours, not sure how it will turn out!

We found it by chance - the sign had fallen over and we called our realtor who was currently working at selling our home and asked if she could find any information on the lot. We made a bid, closed on the lot, and now this little acre is ours.....patiently waiting for us to build, which seems to be more challenging than I had originally anticipated.