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)