Home Sweet Home, Part 5 (The Final Touches)

It was now days from our closing date in the second week of August, which would be just about seven months from the time we signed our contract and five months from the start of the project. Five days before closing we had our first walk-thru at the house with Kevin on a Sunday afternoon. This was his chance to go around and tell us about everything in the house and how it all worked. You may think you know how everything in a house is supposed to work but if you hadn't seen some of the new things in the housing market, then you'd be wrong. He went through the kitchen and the appliances and it was there we found out that we had a smart oven. They didn't have the double oven in stock that we had ordered so they sent out the next model up, which could connect to the internet and had a screen to shows recipes and such.

Myric is super-excited about her open-concept kitchen and family room

Considering that all of us were there looking around the new place for the first time, there were quite a few little things that we all found. These were all dutifully written down so that Kevin could take the next few days and take care of them. We went through every room on both floors and checked it out thoroughly. But overall we were thrilled with how the house had turned out. It was so quiet inside with the new windows and all the insulation and it all looked like we had hoped.

Foyer stairway with iron balusters, and tile work in all the bathrooms

On Thursday of that last week, the day before closing, we were to come back for the final walk-thru. That day we also walked around the outside to add some things to the list. We went over all the things that got fixed over the last few days and then I went up into the attic to check out the furnaces and the insulation. Leave no stone unturned is what I say. I also went down into the basement as I had a vested interest in that location. And then we went into the garage to learn about the new Rinnai natural gas fired 199,000 BTU Super High Efficiency Plus Tankless water heater with Thermacirc 360 recirculation for quicker hot water and the Smart Home internet-connected and voice activated connection. This is one of my very favorite features in the home because it represents the best of the best in a particular appliance. Do I have a picture of this engineering marvel? Of course I do!

The "Super High Efficiency Plus" Rinnai tankless water heater

Some of you may remember I installed a smaller electric version of a tankless water heater in my last home and we loved it. The only downside was the time it took the hot water to arrive from the water heater to the upstairs bathroom, usually about 45 seconds or so. Truth be told, our original 50-gallon tank model also took as long to get us the hot water, but that is more a matter of certain faucets being the farthest away. However, this new system has a standard circulation pump that keeps hot water in a loop that goes out to the farthest faucet and comes back to the pump. Now when we turn the hot water on it's there immediately, like a couple of seconds. Before I turned that feature back on it was taking several minutes to get to some of the bathrooms, like mine. I may have been the last on the loop. You can waste a lot of water waiting so this is a great feature. If you ever wondered if a tankless is worthwhile, the answer is yes when building a new house, but you need to get one like this with all the features. It would also be worth it if you are replacing your water heater and it's in an area that is close to an outside wall to make the installation easier. It can cost several thousand dollars to put one of these in after the fact. To be fair, Kevin didn't explain all of this in his walk-thru, I found it out on my own. But he did tell us a lot of helpful stuff.

The family room, right next to the kitchen, with the fireplace and windows

The next day was Friday, closing day, and we made a quick trip by the house to see what else had been done. Then we headed to the lawyer's office for the closing, which was exciting because it was uneventful. We paid our money, signed the papers, and went back to claim our keys. We could all hardly believe what had transpired in just seven months.

We have a deck off the kitchen, which almost got built to half size

Kathy and I moved in the items from our storage room over the weekend, and then had our portable storage container delivered to the house on Monday with the rest of our items. The only snag we had was that the key I had carefully put in a safe place to open the lock did not work that day, so I had to run and rent a bolt cutter from Home Depot to get it off. We had hired a couple guys off the U-Haul website to unload it for us and by Monday night all our stuff was in the house. Well, actually, it was in the empty basement which is guess is still technically the house. Kathy and I slept there that night as our stuff was all there. Jon and Myric moved in a couple days later and we've been in the new house for a month now. In some ways it feels like we've always been there. I think it sure feels like home.

Under that deck is the door to the basement, and our future apartment

We chose this lot because it had the largest flat back yard

We've gotten out to meet our new neighbors. We were the first to move in but there are now three other families in houses across the street. The back of the house is a pleasant place to be. When you look out of the back windows you get to see just the woods behind the house. When you're out in the backyard you feel like you're a part of nature. Just this week the girls and Myric went out to explore the back yard and ventured out into the lot next door because of the "pretty flowers." They are pretty but I still think they are weeds. They seemed to enjoy the nature walk.

The girls took an afternoon to go on a nature walk

We still have to deal with the construction traffic during the day as there are still twelve more houses that need to be built. There are still a few items waiting to be completed. However, there were a number of other tasks waiting to be finished that Jon and I simply did ourselves as it was simpler and quicker. And there are quite a few larger projects that need to be done over the next year or two. The first big item on that list is building out the basement for an apartment for Kathy and myself. We will have about 1,595 square feet of living space which will officially be our smallest home. There will be an entrance to the apartment from the back door under the porch, as well as one at the bottom of the stairs from the first floor of the house. All the photos you see of the basement show many walls that look like it's already set up for an apartment, but there are only some walls built. Those are the ones that support the structure of the house. I need to add a few more walls to close off and partition separate rooms. As we have purged again a few months ago when we moved, we should be ready to set up life once the build is complete. That will probably deserve a blog post or two when complete.

Prepared and ready to finish the basement for our new apartment

So were we glad that we chose this path when searching for a different place to live? Definitely yes! After searching out nearly every other option we could find, going with a new build house in this location with this floor plan and basement was exactly what we were looking for. A surprising spreadsheet projection puts the new mortgage, insurance, and utilities cost of this house at $100 a month over what Jon and I were both paying before. With interest rates so low it ended up being a great time to finance this dream. Neither of us will need to think about upkeep and repairs for quite some time. This is the well-made home we had in mind when we thought about the house we all wanted to live in. It has been an amazing journey and we're glad we all went through it together.

The official company drawing of the Laurelwood model home

I leave you with this last photo as I close out this journey of ours. It is the picture of the Arts and Crafts elevation of the Laurelwood model and was the favorite of the four options offered. Unfortunately it was listed as the most expensive, though only by $6,000 or so. We agonized over whether to spend the extra money and the decision was made to go with the least expensive option since the inside would be the same. But on the day we went to sign the contract, we were told that the Arts and Crafts elevation was the cheapest of the four options and so we ended up with it anyway. God has been with us through this whole process and we are thankful to Him for it.

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)

-- THE END --

(of the Home Sweet Home series. See you with the next blog post!)

Home Sweet Home, Part 4 (Up Out Of The Ground)

As you can imagine, there was a great deal of excitement over the foundation work that was completed. This was really happening! In what we looked at as a miracle from God, we were introduced to Kevin who was our new builder. We never met the former builder, though I tried many times. We never met any of the company people, who you'd think would want to meet the first customer to buy one of these houses. We never got any information from any of the parade of agents who were sent to our community. There was nobody who would now answer our questions, which was not surprising since nobody could answer them before. I told Jon that I only looked at this as a means to the home we wanted, and not as the experience we had hoped to have. Though the company sorely disappointed us, it was Kevin who would answer our questions or find out the answer.

All these walls helped support the structure of the home above

It took a month to get the foundation in because of all the rain. Then the weather turned nice and the walls went up quicker than I expected. During this first part of the build I showed up at the end of each day to see what got done, or didn't get done. As I've said before, there was nothing I could do even if there was something I didn't like. Nor was I able to do anything on the project myself. But I would take pictures of the day's progress and I started a text group message to inform the others of what was taking place. I learned a lot about new building techniques just by watching as the building went up. I was far more intrigued and interested in what was happening in the structure. By the time they closed up the house and began on the finishes I wouldn't be able to get in at all. Since I drove for Lyft each day I usually ended up going by anyway and so I was able to keep tabs on the build and report back to the rest.

Right around the time of the structure being closed in, Kathy and I put our house in Hiram up for sale and it sold within a few days. We closed a month later and we moved in with Jon and Myric (again!) for a couple months. It was deja vu as we had also done this when first moving to the Atlanta area. We put all our possessions in storage to await the closing of the new home and the legal ownership that would allow us to move in.

The entire structure is complete and covered with OSB

The picture of the house with all the wall and roof sheathing on it is one that stays in my mind because of the houses I've had that were not constructed like that. It was also nice to see a fully covered house in Tyvek. The only time I had seen that in person was when we put it on the church that first year of building. Then the roof shingles went on, next the siding, and then the windows. I had barely gotten that picture when they painted it all. It was all moving so fast now. Considering how slowly they had moved at the beginning it was nice to see constant movement. Before you got used to the structure being up, it seemed like it was all painted and ready to go. It was hard not to be impatient about moving in!

Tyvek house wrap, windows installed, porch built, roof shingles added

I happened to be talking to Kevin one day when I stopped by and he was talking about the deck project that was to be starting soon. I made a comment about how I was glad it was 18 foot long and he responded by saying, no, it was only 12 feet. I was certain I had seen it on the plans at 18 feet so he pulled up the plans on his laptop and, sure enough, it was 12x18 feet. He had to quickly make plans to make sure the concrete below it would be made that size and then order enough lumber for the larger size. And it saved him from making the one next door too small. This was the very reason I stopped by the work site each day.

Siding painted and stone work finished at the porch level

When we were at the Design Center, one of the choices we had to make was the exterior colors. We all liked the dark gray siding with the dark blue shutters and front door. The unique plan for the paint colors in the neighborhood was that once an owner chose their paint selection then it was removed from the options for the owners who came later. While there was a general theme going on in our neighborhood you would be hard pressed to call it simple cookie cutter.

Shutters painted, porch pillars, metal roof, driveway, and landscaping

Two oak trees in front and two maples in back, plus the street light

Landscaping added on the left side, with the forest left alone

Around this time I started assembling a list of things that I knew needed completing. I had discovered that Kevin was just as thorough as I and took care of things as he saw them. But as we got closer to closing day Kevin asked me for a list so he could be sure to get everything done. It was great to have someone willing to listen to you. He helped us get some upgrades that we had chosen and paid for, but that the company said we weren't supposed to get. One thing they learned; don't ever tell that to someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Kevin pursued getting the 2-piece crown that we had been told about from the beginning, and the ceiling fans in the bedrooms they had told us about at the Design Center. Thankfully, someone at the company found documentation to verify both those purchases and we finally got them in the house. I was right about the 2-piece crown molding—it may have cost a bunch of money but they sure looked amazing!

We fought to get upgraded crown molding and ceiling fans we paid for Though we had been down in that basement a few times, we never noticed anything out of place until Kevin mentioned it to us. Turns out that he had misread an email about the heights of the floors and instead of an eight foot height in the basement he took it to be nine foot. So the houses on lots 12, 13, and 14 all have an extra foot of height down in the basement, which is an amazing gift considering how low most basement ceilings tend to be. It's all the more a blessing since we will actually be finishing it off and living down there.

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)

(Be sure to check out "Home Sweet Home, Part 5" which follows.)

Home Sweet Home, Part 3 (Is This Really Happening?)

If you're coming from Part 2 you'll remember that I mentioned the term "builder grade." It has become a term that represents the very least you can legally put into a house as it is built. That is unfortunate as most people would pay a few thousand extra for a new house that had more than the minimum. What does a builder gain by sheathing a house with thin foam board instead of OSB? One might think it more insulated but structure is compromised. Why would you install shingles without tar paper? Not only does it void the shingle warranty but you lose that extra protection against water intrusion. What about leaving out underlayment to place on top of the sub floor? While it may not be required by code it often provides extra stiffening for the floor and levels out the surface for the flooring above. Thin concrete, poor insulation, missing house wrap, cheap windows, cheap cabinets and vanities, cheap lighting, undersized heating and cooling systems, and marginal electrical panels are some of the shortcuts taken under "builder grade."

Builder grade kitchen cabinets: not fancy but they hold your dishes

I've experienced all of the above in one house or another and they all cost money to fix. The junk had to be torn out and the better parts installed. It would have been better to pay a little more to do an upgrade of each item at the time of the build. But as one finds out when going to either buy a new house or have one built, there are no changes allowed by the builder. The plans are drawn up and approved in advance and builders don't want to waste any time as time is money. Economy level builders want a house to go up in as short a time as possible for as low a cost as possible so they can move on to the next one.

Semi-custom: up-to-date cabinets, stainless steel appliances, granite countertop

If builder grade is the bottom rung of the ladder, what is at the other end? For that answer let's go back to Ken who is building what I would call a custom home since he designed it according to what he and Kelly wanted and has contracted with a builder to bring his dream to reality. If he wants to change a few things here and there he can do that. In fact, not too long ago he mentioned online that he had a wall removed. Depending on his agreement with the builder there may be an additional charge but he is entitled to that choice. I see that he has been allowed to work on his house, as he also mentioned that he pulled his media wires throughout the walls. It is likely that Ken and Kelly were able to choose every option they wanted in the house before the build started.

In between those two options is what I would call semi-custom and that is what we experienced. When we chose the model and floor plan we had some other decisions to make. We had two choices for the kitchen area and two choices for the master bathroom. The kitchen options dealt with the island facing and an entryway into the dining room. In the bathroom you could have a tub and a smaller shower or no bathtub, a huge shower, and a monstrous double vanity. There was no extra charge for these choices. Of course, once you made those decisions your floor plan choices were over.

Setting out our choices at the Design Center

Another difference with semi-custom is the choice of finishes. While builder grade makes the choice for you in everything and custom gives the owner the choice of everything, semi-custom gives you a limited number of choices for certain areas of the house important to owners like kitchens and bathrooms. We could choose the color of the kitchen cabinets, door hardware, countertop material and color, tile, appliances, vanities, paint color, carpet color, wood flooring, extra outlets, media ports, crown molding, and exterior colors. Choosing all of those was fun for Kathy and Myric!

Two weeks after signing the contract for the house to be built, we headed to their Design Center to make all those choices. A good amount of time had been spent beforehand with the list of upgrades so we were prepared. There were some surprises with extra choices and lower prices but it took us the four hours they had planned for us. We were able to see exact colors in the showroom, along with lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, carpeting, flooring, and the like. By the time we were done we could start visualizing what they entire house would look like. I liked what I saw in my head.

A great back yard, large and level

Since we were the first one to buy into this new community we had our choice of lots. Well, except for the completed model and the nearly-finished house across the street. This community of sixteen lots was divided up with 1-9 on the left being designated as houses on slabs, while 10-16 on the right were designated as houses with basements. The purpose of this was to follow the original topography of the land. As we walked around the basement lots we decided against 10 and 11 as they were in the tight space of the cul-de-sac where the front property width was less than the width of the house. Jon said we'd go with #12 as it was the largest of those remaining and would have a larger back yard. Plus there was an easement strip between #12 and #11 that would give us breathing room. Lots in communities like this all come with various price premiums, from $5,000 to $25,000. Silly me, I just figured the lot came with the house. Though ours was "just" $10,000 that amount was erased with a builder credit. Many months later we still feel we picked the best one for us. Coming from a back yard filled with trees and hills and mounds, Jon and Myric had hoped for a large and flat back yard and that is exactly what they got.

Preparing the lot

By March they had brought more dirt to the property to start setting up the topography correctly. No more can builders simply do what they want. Properties and communities are required to deal with the rain that falls on the land, protect the trees nearby, keep water away from the house, and plant new trees and bushes with a specific plan. All of that has to be permitted and approved. We ran into an early stage of that policy when finishing the grading of the Lincoln church in 1999, twenty years prior. That was the first time I heard the word "retention pond" and we had to make sure all the water from our property was first routed through that retention pond. Fortunately we had an area that worked well for that purpose, between the parking lots, and it didn't cost us very much. Developers and builders often pay hundreds of thousands of dollars now to meet those requirements.

Footings formed and poured

Once the dirt was moved into place or scrapped away, the digging started for the footings. Then the forms for the foundation walls were put in place and concrete poured. Finally the back half of the basement floor was poured in place like a slab. These were rather complicated floors with deep footings built in to support the walls placed on them later, and lots and lots of reinforcement bars placed all through the concrete. For our eventual apartment, we were happy to see that they put in a heavy plastic sheeting under the concrete floor to keep out moisture.

Foundation formed and poured

All of this made for what was called a daylight basement, or what my dad called a walkout basement. Here is Georgia they call it a Georgia basement. The front half of the basement is built of concrete walls which step down to ground level in back, allowing the back half of the basement to work just like a house on slab. With the door placed out on that back wall, Kathy and I would have our separate entrance. The build was underway!

Foundation at the front steps down to the back

Basement floor is on ground level in the back yard

Even this early in the build I could see some areas where I would have liked things changed. I had even spoken to the new "builder in charge" for our home but it was clear there was nothing that could be done about it. No matter, I would still keep them honest and show up every evening on the way home from work. I took pictures and kept Jon, Myric, and Kathy informed about what was going on right then. However, it was clear to see the builder wished to get things done right and he always asked how we thought it was going whenever I saw him.

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)

( Be sure to check out "Home Sweet Home, Part 4" which follows)

Home Sweet Home, Part 2 (The Back Story)

Considering the advanced age my kids think I am, I have not lived in that many places and have not owned that many houses. During my married life I've lived in two apartments, one mobile home, one parsonage that belonged to the church, and just four houses that we were fortunate enough to purchase. I've known some who kept buying, fixing, and selling houses over the years and moved from one to the next after each was sold. Too much moving for me. I echo the words of my wife during the past few months: "I hate moving!" These are the houses that brought me to where we are today.....house-wise anyway. Nobody really wants to see an apartment or a mobile home. Okay, maybe I'll show the mobile home since it was a purchased house-type space. We appreciated the privacy after two-and-a-half years of living in apartments. We were in it only two years so we got most all our money back in the sale of it.

Our 14x70 Mobile Home, the original Tiny House (1983)

The church parsonage in Warren was a home built in 1879. While Kathy loved the charm of that home, I could not abide the lack of insulation, the drafty old original windows, the sagging floors and doors, and the list goes on. I put a lot of work into that house, and that was before I had any experience in remodeling and renovation. Over time it turned into an old home worthy of the Warren Tour of Homes while we lived there and it was warmly received by the community. After living in it for seven years it was worth double what the church paid. Sadly, it wasn't our own personal house so we wouldn't make the profit to put into the next home.

Church parsonage in Warren (built 1879)

The first home that we personally bought was when we first moved to Lincoln. It was our first home purchase and a difficult one to find and pull off. It doesn't matter how much you watch HGTV you are never really prepared for that first one.....or any of them for that matter. What I remember most about that deal was making the 5-hour drive from Warren to Lincoln even though the bank had told us they didn't have all the paperwork for us to sign. Our devotional time with friends early that morning convinced us of God's faithfulness in providing that home. When we got to the bank at noon, they asked us why we came and we told them. Then they told us that the paperwork had just come in before we showed up. What a miracle! We had that house sided and I added a couple porches. Work inside was minimal since I still had little experience with reno but near the end of our twelve years there I put in a furnace and air conditioning system based on experience with doing that at the church.

The Ophir house, our first house in Lincoln (built 1958)

Following the conclusion of the church building project in Lincoln, Kathy decided she would like to sell this house and find another. Why, you might ask? Because she had remodeled all that I would let her and she wanted a new challenge. All I wanted was to be finished. But there we were two months after the church dedication making an offer on a wreck of a house. This might have been just like on HGTV, except there would be no crew of dozens of people to get this done in a month. I had wanted to move to the Mayfair subdivision when we first came to Lincoln but couldn't afford the prices. This house had been on the market for seven years with most people running for the hills after just opening the front door. We gutted the entire house and built it back up, moving many walls in the process. I had always wanted to build my own house like my dad did, and this was as close as I figured I could get. It was not the same house when we were done with it. The neighbors cheered. A neighbor bought our house. And then we moved again.

The Mayfair house, closest I got to building a house myself (built 1960)

The Rockford house was a foreclosure as that was just a few years after the housing crash and there were thousands of them available. There were many foreclosures in the Rockford area and I saw the effects of a housing boom gone bad. After having purchased two homes built around the end of the 1950's I had hoped for something newer. This one had been built in 2004, a year that would eventually haunt me twice. It turned out to be a home with many builder shortcuts that affected the stability and livability of the home. Over time I fixed many of them but I quickly learned about the term "builder grade." Otherwise I liked this house a lot, and it was the only house I have had with a 3-car garage.

The Rockford house, loved that 3-car garage (Built 2004)

After purging our lives of accumulated stuff during our time in Illinois, we moved to the Atlanta area. My wife and I found a home in the town of Hiram that was pretty much the smallest house we would ever buy. It was a small 2-story home but there was no basement. That left precious little space in which to store stuff so we embarked on another round of purging. We would do that several times until everything fit in the house. This house was also built in 2004. I should have seen that year and left running. Sure enough, I had some of the same issues, some of them worse. Again I fixed up what I could and made it a safer house. Kathy really loved this house. It was home to her.

The Hiram house, lawn care provided for the front yard (Built 2004)

So, if an 1879-era house is too crude and a 1958-1960-era house lacks up-to-date systems and airtight qualities and a 2004-era house shows too many shortcuts, what does one look for if building a new house? My goals were: concrete poured correctly and as thick as possible, a structure that was over-built for sturdiness, full wood sheathing on walls and roof, sealed as airtight as possible and insulated well, efficient Energy Star appliances and systems, a large tankless water heater, and upgraded features throughout the house. You may notice I am more concerned with what is below the surface. The structure of my prior houses was lacking and not something easily corrected after the fact. But build a structure correctly and you can always change out a finishing item, like vanities or lights. Since Kathy and Myric were more interested in the design elements of the house we left those things to them.

It was B.J. Neblett who wrote: “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences––be they positive or negative––make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.” In the narrow focus of building a home, the positive experience of building a church with its lessons learned, or the negative experiences of a home with issues and problems all contributed to this point in time where one could benefit from all of them.

Arktander
(aka David Andreasen)

( Be sure to check out "Home Sweet Home, Part 3" which follows)

Home Sweet Home, Part 1 (The Overview)

I started this missive a couple months ago, but life was pretty busy back then, so it had to wait. Now I'm laid up for a few days with a bum foot so I figured I'd complete it.

About a month ago we moved into our new home. By "we" and "our" I mean myself, Kathy, Jonathan, Myric, and the girls. By "new" I mean built brand new from the ground up. Ken and Kelly are in the process of doing the same thing for their family and have been chronicling the highlights week by week. We've been following their progress along the way and they won't be too far behind us in making the move to their new place.

Jon and Myric's house

Our journey was certainly unexpected. We've all rehashed it numerous times and I keep hearing new tidbits I hadn't heard before. I think it started sometime last fall (2018) during times we were all together, as we talked about kids and schooling and houses and room and upgrades and projects and all those kinds of things that make up a family's life at that very moment. Jon and Myric had bought their home in 2016 and Kathy and I had bought ours a year later in 2017 and life in Georgia was settling down. We were all still adapting to the twins' entry into the world and the need for more space. Add to that the project wish list and the continued repairs of a 30-year-old house and Jon had his hands full. My projects were coming to an end after doing only those items on the list that seemed absolutely necessary. Somewhere in all of that house-related conversation the topic of making a move to a new house was broached. I think it was Kathy who dared to utter such a crazy idea, but no matter. It was uttered and the little seed was planted.

David and Kathy's house

As for myself, I wasn't completely put off by the idea. I had been through a ground-up build on our church in Lincoln and had also been through a complete gut-and-replace project on our Mayfair house so I was no stranger to the process. I had even checked out a couple communities online with Kathy. But it just felt like an unattainable and unreachable goal that most of us quickly dismissed the thought. Undeterred, Kathy changed tactics and started emailing all of us listings of homes for sale that might suit Jon and Myric's family better. My reaction usually was negative as I saw a ton of work that was needed on each of those houses. None of them was really an upgrade from what they already had as they cost more money upfront and they still needed more work which would cost even more money.

Could I just jump up on my soapbox for a quick paragraph and talk about house ownership etiquette? There is an expectation of perfection in every home by potential buyers to the point that they want you to fix dozens of little ridiculous details before they will even consider your house. On the seller side, the norm is to put up for sale a house that has not been kept up for decades but with a selling price that reflects perfection. Both of these expectations are unrealistic. There's a middle ground somewhere in there. I think being a homeowner comes with a responsibility to keep your home in good repair, both for yourself and also for your neighbors. It's part of being a homeowner. And it's also realistic to simply ignore homes with a ridiculous price when buying, and best to realize when you need to fix things up when you're selling. Okay, off the soapbox and back to the subject at hand.

This past Christmas 2018, all of us (the "we" from up above) spent Christmas in Texas with family. Along with visits to other nearby family, we went on a field trip to several new home communities. Because Bob. All the sales people knew Bob from his previous visits and welcomed us to look around. We toured a couple model homes and saw first hand what a new home build looked like. Once again, beautiful homes, but an unrealistic thought for us. I took their brochures and price lists and saved them for future reference.

As 2019 began, with that Christmas experience just weeks behind us, Kathy suggested that she and I go and check out a new home community halfway between us and the kids. She had seen this area worked on over the past year as she drove by it on her way to work and back home again. There was now a model home on site and we stopped in to take a look. Like the ones in Texas, the home was well-made and had many great features. I especially liked the solid exterior and interior construction, heavy insulation, well-made quiet windows, high ceilings, wood floors, in-wall media wiring, open concept living, trim and molding details, and the tankless water heater. It also had a good location for Jon's work as the drive would be about the same. It had been difficult finding a good pre-owned house in a good location so this was a contender. We collected all the information we could and headed home to crunch the numbers.

Model home, Brentwood

It's one thing to have an idea, another thing completely for it to be a good idea. I put the numbers together for purchase price, monthly payments, utility costs, space requirements, and an apartment for us in the basement. For this to work it would need the resources of two families and the numbers suggested it was possible. Though the idea had been floated before as just another idea, this time it could be for real. So that weekend I emailed my findings to Jon just like Kathy had done with the home listings, just not really thinking anything could ever come of it.

In true Andreasen fashion, Jon checked it out thoroughly, making up spreadsheets to validate the numbers and visiting the community to check out the houses with Myric a few days later. Across the street from the model home was a different version under construction. This was the one that got his attention and was the subject of our family roundtable discussion a few days later. Jon and Myric liked the location, the small community, the floor plan of the house, and the overall look of the house. Surprisingly, we had all stumbled upon a possible solution for a long-term living situation. We all started asking questions of each other. We found out Jon and Myric liked the "Laurelwood" model because of the room placements all throughout the house. We found out that Kathy did not want to live in a room or two of the house but have a true apartment with a separate entrance to give each family privacy. The basement option fit the bill. After having lived in a subdivision of several hundred houses with all its owners and drivers speeding by their house every day, Jon and Myric liked the idea of a small community of just sixteen houses set apart on its own. We all liked being in the same general area we had known for the past few years. Could this really be happening?

From my perspective, I felt God had opened this door to us much like he had opened the door to building the church in Lincoln. We would still have to walk through the door in faith with all that might entail for the future but I was convinced of this as a true "God thing" and not as a passing whim. I don't get those kinds of strong impressions every day and I wanted to convey that this was real and we should give it serious consideration. We all agreed that Jon and I would follow up at the model home with the agent the coming Saturday.

On the third Saturday of January, just one week after Kathy and I had scouted out the place, Jon and I went in to.....well, I wasn't exactly sure what we were going to do except get more information. I had found an online ad that listed the house across the street for lower than expected so I figured we'd start there with the agent. That conversation did not go well. Let's just say that some people are not suited for certain jobs and this agent did everything wrong from the get-go. Somebody else was blamed for putting up incorrect information online and we were told we could not get that price. Nobody took responsibility for anything that was clearly their fault. That was that, I figured, and I expected that we'd head home since my numbers had been based on that lower price. But Jon saw some other things I hadn't. He said we should just build our own instead. We could choose our own lot, pick out our own finishes, and make it our own. And he had the numbers to back it up. It would cost more, as it seemed that the lower-priced home with the unattainable price did not take into account the cost of the basement (yes, we figured it out when they didn't), but the plan still made sense.

The Laurelwood under construction with the wrong online price

So that was the day we wrote up the contract for lot #12 with the Laurelwood floor plan and the basement addition. When we came home and the girls asked how it went, we said that we just bought a house and they were shocked. Considering how this came together in such a short time with little time to really contemplate all of it, that was understandable. If you've kept up with Kelly's updates on their home build, you've read the story of how God pointed out a piece of property to them years ago that would become their new home location. After numerous times of trying to buy it unsuccessfully, God one day simply opened the door and they walked through it. Today they are seeing that dream and promise through to its conclusion. We had just done the same thing.

Ken and Kelly's house under construction

I don't know why it took so many years for God to open that door for Ken and Kelly, or why He allowed our plan to come together in one week, or why so many of our hopes and dreams go unfulfilled over a lifetime. The best way I can answer that is that God does all things well. I have to believe that if I am to believe anything about the God of the Universe. We may not always get our way but His way is always best. And I am thankful that He allows us these moments of joy and blessing and confirms them in our hearts.

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)

(Be sure to check out "Home Sweet Home, Part 2" which follows)

What Time Is It? (Collecting What You Love)

You never know the kinds of things people will collect. Google "large collections" and you will find all sorts of items people decide to collect. One guy has over 11,000 "Do Not Disturb" signs from hotel doors. He really doesn't want to be disturbed. An older couple has collected nearly 7,000 chicken related items. Maybe they own stock in KFC. Then there's the girl who has amassed almost 3,000 rubber duckies, each one different from the last. That one quacks me up! For Kathy and I, our taste turned to Precious Moments figurines. They started producing those figurines right around the time we got married in 1980 and each one was stamped on the bottom with "Jonathan & David" which was the name of the new company. But we only got those figurines that meant something to us and represented an event or significance in our lives. I actually have about a dozen that are significant to me that are displayed in my room.

 

One of my first elephants

Those of you who know me know that I once amassed a large collection of elephants, initially against my will. In the 40 days leading up to my 40th birthday a unique elephant was delivered to me by someone in the Lincoln church. And once that initial collection was known to those in the church, the elephants kept coming. Everyone tried to outdo the others until I had an almost bizarre variety of elephant items. Stuffed elephants, beanie baby elephants, elephant notebooks, elephant pens, elephant lunch box, elephant mugs, and elephants of every sort of material filled the shelves. At one point the "collection" reached over 400 different items, a far cry away from the more prolific collectors but way more than the two I had sitting on my desk before the elephant invasion commenced.

Intertwined trunks to represent married love

When I asked why they picked elephants, I was told they saw my collection and wanted to add to it. My collection? The only elephants I had were the two small ones I bought on our honeymoon. Why did I even get those two? Because of the large quartz elephant my parents had in the living room since I was very young. That's how I eventually ended up with a large elephant collection. But along the way there were some elephants that meant a lot to me and those are the ones I still have. For instance, the pair of jade elephants from China that Jon bought me during one of his college summer trips. Or the handmade wood elephants from Africa with real ivory tusks. I'll always treasure those.

The majority of my elephant collection now fits on one shelf

I had a few watches during my teen years. The most memorable of them was the LED digital watch for my high school graduation. It was a dress gold watch, not the plastic kind that came later with Timex. It eventually gave way to a Seiko digital watch and then a great many cheap Walmart watches during the church building program. They never lasted long. There was a time we all wore watches because that's how you knew what time it was. Once the cell phone came along, it replaced the wrist watch as a time piece. The favorite parking location for a cell phone is in the pants pocket, and you'll see many pulling it out just to tell the time. When I ask different ones why they don't wear a wrist watch they look at me like I'm from an alien planet as they say, "why would I wear a watch when I already have the time on my phone?" To that I say, "why wouldn't you?" but to each their own.

Like other things that happened in my life, a series of unrelated events came together to introduce me to various kinds of watches and I started to collect them. The great thing about it was that I also got to wear my collection every day. I didn't spend much money on these watches but the collection grew to over three dozen over time. I also joined a watch group and eventually was asked to be a moderator on their online forum. I got to know numbers of the other members and also bought, sold, and traded watches with some of them. I sold the ones I could make money on and bought others that were cheaper. I narrowed the collection down to one of each kind. One with a Valjoux 7751 movement, one with the Valjoux 7750 movement, one with an ETA 2824, one with a meteorite dial and so on. One of this color, one of that color. You get the idea. Now I have less than twenty but they all have meaning for me. Then the forum shut down, I was no longer a moderator, and the collecting bug disappeared.

But in the end, this story about watches is about another momentous event as much as it is about collecting watches. It was following our son Jared's high school graduation that we asked him once again about what was next in life for him. Did he want to go to college? Did he have a life's vocation in mind? He asked if it would be alright if he just worked for maybe a year to figure out what he wanted to do. He got a job at Dominos and worked full-time making pizzas and delivering them. A year later, he was all excited as he came to me and said he knew what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go. The "what" was learning to be a jeweler. The "where" was Gem City College in Quincy, Illinois. Turns out he had seen a documentary on jewelers and it had looked interesting to him, to the point he wanted to make it his vocation. Having spent a couple years in Quincy I knew exactly where that was. He asked if I would go with him to check it out, and one sunny April day we headed out for Quincy.

 Part of a tray of 100 different original rings

We went straight to the school as we had called ahead to make an appointment for that day. Someone met us at the door and took us down the hall to show us the first big display in two huge glass cabinets. This showed some of the projects that students would learn in jewelry design, including the requirement to design and fashion 100 different rings over the course of the class. They also taught ring resizing, ring repair, metal polishing, and setting stones among the various subjects that were all part of being a jeweler. He still seemed interested, though creating all those rings gave him pause. He did not think he was very creative. And then we went on to the next big display.

Watchmaker desks lined up for watchmaking classes

I don't know about Jared, but I hadn't known that the other part of Jewelry Design was Watchmaking. I remember thinking, "now you're speaking my language!" When he walked down to that display he wanted to know what it was all about. There he got a crash course in what it took to open up and take apart a watch, clean all the parts, and then reassemble them in the proper order to rejuvenate or restore a watch. He was much more excited about this display and the school representative said that many who went through the Jewelry and Watchmaking process often started with watchmaking. The idea was that watches and jewelry were usually offered for sale in the same store and therefore the person who became a jeweler/watchmaker could be kept busy by doing repairs for both parts of the equation.

Jared signed up for the Watchmaking classes, which took just over a year, and then decided that he liked the structured process of taking apart a watch and putting it back together over the creative process of designing jewelry. He skipped the Jewelry classes and promptly got a job at Illinois Watch Company working under Craig Stone and learned a great deal about the real world of watchmaking. He went on to AWCI (American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute) for certification courses. After five years with Craig he found a job in Louisiana as a Rolex watchmaker. He's been to Rolex headquarters in Pennsylvania a couple times for some more training and finds great fulfillment in his career. He also works on Omega, Hamilton, Tag Heuer, and Seiko watches. He enjoys that immensely.

An Invicta Subaqua Noma IV with the Valjoux 7750 chronograph movement

We'll never know if my interest in watches made a difference in which path Jared took, but it's one of those points of convergence in a father's and son's life that will be remembered. We still talk about watches and watchmaking in great detail during some of our marathon multi-hour phone conversations (I know what you're thinking: gasp! you actually TALK on the phone?) and it's been a common interest for over ten years now. I expect it will continue to be a common point of interest for us for years to come. Well, that and cars, as we can talk hours about those as well. I guess you could also say we can just talk and talk and talk quite easily.

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)

Digital Mayhem (Take All The Pictures You Want)

I often think back to the life-changing events of the past and what it might have been like to be a part of that history.  Johannes Gutenberg began work on his movable type printing press in 1436, and his work in printing the Bible helped change the world for future generations. Carl Benz debuted his three-wheeled gasoline vehicle in 1885 and the transportation shift from trains to cars would be transformed. Wilbur and Orville Wright ushered in the prospect of long-distance and international travel with their first airplane flights in 1903. Digital computers as we know them today appeared in the early 1940's following mechanical computer efforts over a century before. Today we can't think of life without these inventions.

1888 Benz automobile

As I pondered this thought even more, I realized that there are many of us today who have witnessed colossal changes in even shorter periods of time. Ever heard of a smartphone? All three of my sons were born before the Simon Personal Communicator was introduced by IBM in 1992. The Blackberry was the next big thing in smartphones, showing up on the scene in 1999. But the game-changer was the iPhone that took the world by storm in 2007 and hasn't let up since. I remember seeing that first iPhone and wondering who would ever buy such a thing. Today there's hardly a corner of the world that hasn't seen the smartphone being used by so many people for so many purposes.

Cameras fall into this same grouping. In 1888 George Eastman came out with the first box camera simply called the Kodak. A couple years later the Brownie was unveiled for taking "snapshots" and mass market photography was underway. When 35mm film took over in the early 1900's it allowed for multiple exposures on one roll before you had to send it for development. While there were other niche cameras that vied for consumer acceptance—including Polaroid, Disc, Instant, Disposable, and Medium Format—the 35mm cameras came to dominate the market. It was this world I found myself in as I started life as a teenager.

Yashica 35 Manual

I was given a Yashica manual 35mm camera at age thirteen by my aunt and uncle and learned to manually focus the lens while manually choosing the aperture and shutter speed. In many ways those early photos seemed more pleasing and well exposed than what you see today. Or perhaps it was that one thought they were better because of all the effort expended just to take one photo. I ran many rolls of film through it in Photography class in high school, usually the black and white variety. There we learned to get the film out of the cartridge in the dark, develop the film in the dark, and print up photo enlargements in the relative dark. And you wondered why they called it the dark room?

Canon AE-1

I used it during the first years of college, taking photos for the yearbook or photos of the couples at spring banquet. It wasn't like I was the only one at college with a camera but I was one of the few who had a 35mm and was well-versed in using it. Even back then Canon and Nikon were the cameras of choice but such were not in the budget for a college student. But I imagined that some day I might get a camera like the Canon AE-1. That was my dream.

Yashica Electro 35

That first Yashica lasted nearly ten years until my next gifted camera, the Yashica Electro 35, courtesy of my eventual father-in-law. That one had automatic exposure so all one had to do was focus. I used this one for probably another ten years, through the end of college and on into early married life. I have a photographic record of the early years of our boys and our family because of this camera. I became the family photographer much like my mother, which is why she and I are rarely in family photographs from those years. I acquired a tripod from somebody and an automatic shutter release timer from somebody else and soon I was in some of the family photos. Oh sure, I still had to arrange everybody else to fit into the frame, mark out a spot for me to stand, set the 15 second timer, run like a maniac into the aforementioned spot, and then tell everyone to smile and keep their eyes open until the shutter clicked. But at least I was now in the photo for the record. What was the record? All those photo albums where you stored all the photos, never to be seen again!

Yashica 200-AF

Around the end of the 1980's I decided to upgrade to an SLR, or Single-Lens Reflex camera. Those two early Yashicas had been viewfinder cameras, where you looked through the viewfinder off to the left of the lens and saw an approximation of what you would get on film. It was frustrating for a fine photographer like myself to frame up a photo in the viewfinder only to find someone's head chopped off when the photos came back from development. An SLR showed you exactly what you would get because you were looking straight through the lens right up until pressing the shutter. I ended up purchasing—wait for it!—a Yashica 200-AF because it was cheaper than a Canon or Nikon and there were rebates available and because I was an Andreasen. We just don't spend money needlessly. But those two letters at the end of the model name said it all. Auto Focus. Press the shutter and the lens turned and whirred as it focused in the center of the lens. Since it also set aperture and shutter speed it was a totally automatic camera. I got an extra telephoto lens, a plug-in flash, and a camera bag and I felt like a professional photographer.

Fast forward ahead a dozen or so years to 2001 and my wife and I are planning a trip to Europe to visit our friends, Ken and Marianne Barickman, who lived in Brussels, Belgium, at the time. The highlight of the trip would be a one day trip to Paris. Yes, the one in France and not the one in Illinois. I've been to the one in Illinois, just not as memorable as visiting the one in France. I would take this camera with me along with 3 rolls of 24 exposure film. By squeezing in one extra photo per roll that meant I planned on taking 75 photos during my time there. Two weeks. Brussels. Paris. Amsterdam. Bruges. Antwerp. Aachen. Nivelles. Let that sink in for just a bit. Two weeks, 75 photos. Why was I so tight-fisted with the film on the trip of a lifetime? For those who remember those days, it cost a bunch of money to make photos. If you bought the best film and got it developed at the best places it would cost you $25 or more per roll, and I had three of them. It was costing me plenty for the trip as it was and taking photos was the least of my priorities. In today's social media conscious society, such would be unthinkable. But this was a different time and taking photos was seen as more of a luxury than a necessity. Did I mention I'm an Andreasen and I'm cheap?

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France

Photo 18 of 75

In the end I took 25 photos in Paris, meaning I took only one full roll with me to Paris and allowed myself only that one. While I did get photos of the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arch of Triumph, and our evening dinner eating outside at a café on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees just a couple blocks from the Arc de Triomphe all lit up in the center of the city, I only got one of each. If your eyes were closed, too bad so sad. Because of the dearth of photos with which to remember that trip, it remains mostly just fond memories of a great time in another part of the world. Don't discount memories! Sometimes they are even better than the actual happenings, like Kathy's retelling of the Paris pickpocket story versus the actual event. But this is also why I told Myric to take as many photos as she could when she and Jon took a trip to Paris many years later. I think she took nearly 2,000 photos including many of the places I didn't get to see, like the Louvre. Because of her photos I was able to take another trip down memory lane back to one of the best places we ever visited.

Not long afterwards you began hearing about digital cameras being developed for consumer sales. Once again I couldn't imagine anyone actually buying one of these things. But once again I was wrong. You might say I am not an early adopter. In 2003 sales of digital cameras surpassed analog cameras and never looked back. My first digital camera was a pocket sized Canon Powershot, one that I bought for a week trip to the Big Apple and Niagara Falls with our Australian friends Craig and Missy in 2005. Being that he was truly a photographer and had awesome equipment I tried to learn from him. And I got some awesome photos on that trip.

When the iPhone came out in 2007 it was an instant success, more so for its camera and apps than for its phone capabilities. Apple really should have called it the iCamera or the iTexter. In the years since then cell phone manufacturers have seemingly spent more time improving the cameras contained in the phone than they have in improving the sound quality or reception of the phone itself. The cell phone camera has become such a deeply ingrained part of our lives that we now take thousands of photos of everything under the sun. There are now so many folks with their phone cameras at weddings that the professional photographers are constantly getting their photos ruined with the interlopers. Probably every dish ever offered for breakfast, lunch, or dinner has been photographed and placed online for all to see. And of course, there are the social media sites that allow us to share our lives with our families or perhaps everyone on the planet. 

Canon 60D DSLR

Over the course of fifty-some years, I went from a used 35mm manual camera, to an auto exposure 35mm camera, to a fully automatic 35mm camera, to numerous iterations of digital cameras which culminated in the Canon 60D, and then on to numerous cell phones with cameras of varying quality. It took 40 years but my college goal of getting a professional level Canon camera was finally realized. To say it takes amazing photos would be an understatement. It far surpasses anything I ever had previous to it. That's why I stopped upgrading. I finally found the camera that will serve me well for years to come. Sadly, most of the photos that I take today are with whatever cell phone I have with me at the moment. The DSLR is a large and heavy piece of equipment and not inconspicuous, so it's much simpler to put the cell phone in  your pocket for when you need it.

In that time period of taking photos, I have witnessed the camera that had served as a pricey and complicated tool for professionals transition into a handy and simple tool for everyone. While I still have my memories of good times gone by, I do appreciate the chance to scroll through the camera roll on my cell phone for thousands of photos of events I can appreciate anytime. At the moment I have 15,000 photos on my cell phone which include all the photos from all my previous cell phones. I have 25,000 photos from the five digital cameras I have used over the past fifteen years. And there are 75,000 photos in the Pictures folder of my desktop computer. I suppose there is some overlap in all of that but it would be safe to say I have over 100,000 digital photos that I've taken in those fifteen years. I've never counted all the photos in the photo albums or checked the negatives in the plastic sleeves but I'd imagine it would only be several thousand photos over those first thirty-fives years of film cameras. You have to be determined to hunt down one particular photo among the dozens of albums in the numerous boxes. I have made it a point to scan as many printed photos as possible since those printed photos continue to deteriorate with age. At least then they will still be available for future generations of the family.

Kids today may take it for granted, but the camera really is a marvelous tool.

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)