Before I get to the nitty gritty of the setbacks we’ve experienced in another blog post…I first wanted to admit/get it out there that the reality of building a house and the “idea” of building a house are two different things. I realize we are two lucky mo’ fo’s. I really do. I also realize that its such a huge blessing to be able to pick everything out ourselves. Huge! Who gets these opportunities? We do? We do. Crazy! But you kinda metaphorically sell your soul to the devil for those things at the same time in the following pretty major ways:
1) T.I.M.E. precious time. For most people who build and live in a rental or their previous home during the process, this may not so much apply. But for us, who are living with relatives in a teeny tiny (and getting increasingly smaller each day) room, time is a big issue. Waiting for a house to be built requires patience that I was lacking previous to this process. I can’t stop imagining our lives in the house and I just want to get there to that end goal so badly. There are days where I probably say to Sean 5 times in 5 minutes, “I cant wait for our house to be built.”
2) For every “high” of building (seeing your plans & renderings, getting your permits approved, closing on your loan), there have typically been several associated “setbacks” (plans need to be redrawn over and over, city doesn’t approve your plans, loan after loan wasn’t what it seemed).
3) Picking out all of the aforementioned little details isn’t as fun when you have a dark cloud of budget overruns looming over you. I was under the impression that if we ran over our budget it would be because of getting caught up on having to have something. I was hopeful that we would avoid this and stick to the budget but whats an $1,000 splurge on a farm sink in the grand scheme of things. I thought maybe we would fudge our budget a couple grand in the end on a couple fun splurges. Maybe end up with some money for furniture (which was originally in the budget. many, many budgets ago.) This is simply not the case. We have basically blown our budget up. And not on farm sinks or expensive tile or landscaping like I had hoped. But on sewage & power lines, soils reports, crazy seemingly unnecessary retaining walls, and permit fees. BTW, this is the house building equivalent of having to use your birthday money to buy new tires. Blows!
With all that off my chest, I am so grateful to have this opportunity. And I know that once we break ground and get this road on the show, its going to get fun again. But right now, there have been more lows than highs. Silver lining? That it kinda doesn’t even matter. Were not saving lives here, were building a house. A house that we could easily just sell if things get too out of hand (I SO HOPE TO NOT THOUGH!). I am also, thankfully, very able to worry for about 10 minutes and then set it aside and go on living my life.
