Dream House Countdown

Have you ever been so excited about something that it was difficult to focus on anything else.  Since August, my husband and I have been trying to take years of brainstorming, idea sharing, and plain old day dreaming and narrow it down into a concise Power Point Presentation so that we can begin building our dream home.

The last time I wrote about this in Going Green...ish we were about to head to Texas and pick out a lot to build on.  Well, what we thought we be as simple as putting down a non refundable deposit to secure until we could start construction in February, it turned out to be a whirlwind, anxiety ridden, head ache of a situation.  Here is a simple synopsis of a not so simple situation. 

We already had a home design picked out through Drees Homes called the Jacobson.  We found a lot that we loved that happened to be on a small lake (morning cup of coffee with a view anyone?).  Lake lot had a premium making the combination of the lot and home more than we budgeted for (still affordable but more than we wanted to spend).  We decided to put in an offer anyway and bid low.  During the negotiation process, our Market Manager discovered that the floor plan we wanted to build was no longer available unbeknownst to him.  We could still build on that lot but with a different floor plan (I was learning all of this while Beau was touring a clinic and unreachable, major stress factor).  Got a call 10 minutes later and learned that they will make an exception, build the Jacobson on that lot but it would be at a non negotiable price which was lower than the full price but still higher than we wanted to spend.  Because we were leaving the country the following day (that a normal situation, right), we needed to make the decision relatively soon, like in the next few hours.  Fast forward through a quick reevaluation of our options, looking at another builder, ruining my nieces cupcakes, and experiencing full fledged anxiety, we ended up negotiating on the non negotiable price because what did we have to lose.  They agreed on our price if we added a 90 day Contingency agreement that essentially said if anyone wanted to buy our lot (even with the sold sign on it) we would get our deposit back and be back to square one.  

Yes, that was the simplified version.  Because of the 90 day contingency agreement, I was superstitious to write about designing the house until we were certain what house it would be.  Then the holidays rolled around and my SimplyE3Design took a little vacation.  Regardless, I'm excited to get back to blogging and share with you the process.

In two weeks we will be heading back to good ol' Roanoke to meet at the design center to pick out the brick and stone, cabinetry, floors, tiles, as well as our few modifications.  I thought I would spend the time leading up sharing with you some of our ideas.   Thank you Pinterest for hours spent searching your site for the perfect examples.  I would also love feedback for a few of the rooms but we'll get to that later.  

For now, here is our "clean slate" home elevation and floor plan.  Can't you just see the potential?!

Jacobson By Drees Homes

Elevation A

1st Floor

2nd Floor