The Beginning

Well, you can't build a house if you don't have a place to put it.... So the first thing we had to do was find some land to buy!  That was a process in itself let me tell you! We wanted to find land that had water and sewage hook up with out it costing an arm and a leg. I would say it took us about 6 months before we found. All-in-all, not too bad on the time line. We started the process of buying the land/getting a home owner-builder loan at the end of 2009.  After all the paper work had settled, we were finally okay to start construction in May 2010.
It's a nice .5 acre lot on the backside of a small golf course.  I thought it was pretty flat and only had a small 2-3ft bank coming off the road (boy does it look different now!) I can't wait to see the end landscaped product!!

This is the property with the layout of the house footprint all done.

After we picked out the property, the hunt was on to find the perfect house for the location/land.  This was what I had been waiting for my whole life!!! (I started going to Lowe's.
in high school to buy home plan designs books.  I love those books!) Needless to say, I was completely prepared for this part and had many houses picked out.  None of them recieved approval from the builder (Jake.)  I was not a happer camper to say the least.  I wanted a beautiful set of stairs because I grew up in a ranch and had lacked the fun that come with these.  However, the hubby had picked out a ranch from Carter Lumber and that was that.  It took me a good, long time to come to love it, but at one point we were thinking about building another house (why, I can't remember right now...) but I just couldn't picture us living in another house.  I had set up how I wanted it to look in my mind already and that's when I knew I loved the house plans Jake picked out and would just learned to deal with the minor details. (I will get a beautiful set of steps down to the basement ; ).)