Pre-Build

My children, James and GiGi, are the fourth generation in our house.  My husband's grandfather (Granddad, as everyone calls him) was the first owner of the house after it was built in the late 1950s (Zillow says 1960, but I'm going according to family tales here), and he raised his lovely twin daughters in the home.  When my husband (Chris) was born, Granddad became his father figure, and Chris ended up living in the house throughout his life at various points.  In February of 2014, Granddad passed away suddenly.  Chris was utterly heartbroken.  Granddad was his person, and I'm not too proud to say he probably will always be.  So, Chris decided to buy the house as-is from the estate, with the intention to keep Granddad in his life.  In 2006, Chris began renovating the house.  I remembered the first time we talked and he told me about the project.  He was so excited as he spoke about his plans!  We weren't dating at the time, but fast-forward eight months to when he asked me on our first date.  He told me all about what he had been doing at the house, and that I should stop by and see it sometime.  I politely agreed, but in my mind I thought I might just wait for the finished product.  You know, a grand reveal like they do on HGTV. 


Here we are nine years later, and our house still isn't completely finished.  While it's close, there still remains a punch list of things to do.  Trim in the utility room, frost the glass doors, repair some tile defects, etc.  All that to say, if I had waited for the "grand reveal", we probably wouldn't be married with two children right now, AND in the middle of building a brand new house!


So, how did we get in the middle of building a brand new house before our existing house is even finished?  Well, it seems to be a simple case of, "Ask and ye shall receive."  (Matthew's words, not mine.  Actually, I think those are the words of Jesus. Either way, I didn't make this stuff up.)  That's literally what we did.  Chris had been talking about this "lot on Baxter" for months.  He explained how it was one of the few remaining lots in our area of town-- the neighborhood was basically fully developed, and had been for decades.  The trees were seasoned, and the residents stuck around.  We loved living in the area, but Chris's dream as an architect was to design and build his own home.  He hated the thought of leaving, but he was burning to build.  So he asked me what I thought about him knocking on the owner's door and asking if he could buy the lot.  Being the sales person I am, I replied, "The only sale you don't get is the one you don't ask for!"  Ok, maybe I didn't say those exact words, but that's when I meant when I said, "Sure! Why not?"


Again, weeks or months went by, because truthfully I didn't actually think he'd do it.  Chris has a tendency to drag his feet when it comes to buying things. He is painfully slow on the trigger... unlike me.  I've accepted this about him, so it doesn't bother me anymore.  (I'm pretty sure my trigger-happy finger still bothers him, though!)  Finally one day we were on a little walk around the neighborhood, and he suggested we walk by to inquire about the lot.  I agreed, but mostly because it would get me a little more exercise (Chris has bad knees, so usually our walks are cut shorter than I'd like). 


The kids and I stood at the end of the drive as Chris rang the doorbell.  When the door opened, there was a tall, willowy woman who appeared to be around our parents' age.  She was darling.  Scurrying around her were two little girls, around our kids' ages, and their mother appeared to be my age.  I instantly liked them.  As it turns out, they must have liked us enough to sell the lot to us.  And now we are future neighbors!

It sounds like that all happened very quickly, but we inquired about the lot in the spring of 2015, and didn't sign closing documents until the end of January of 2016.  Long story short, it was quite challenging to find a bank that was willing to give a loan to someone without selling the existing home for collateral.  Anyway, after being turned down many times, we finally found a banker who saw Chris's vision.  Despite signing the closing docs, I didn't believe it was all real until I saw the foundation had been poured.