We are building a house! We started the process last January and are excited to have it under way. We intended to document the process as we went, but we've been late in getting our blog updated. So we'll try to back-track to document (mostly for our sakes) the process we've gone through.
Dreaming the Dream
The thought of building really first crossed our minds just a little over a year ago. Amy's dad, Vaughn, is a realtor, so we always thought we'd just work with him to find an existing home that we'd call our own. But in January 2015, we went out looking at some model homes in areas that we've liked. Ever since we lived in Logan back in 2000-2006 we always liked the River Heights area. It's just over the hill from the "island" area where Vaughn and Cecelia live, and we had always been drawn back to River Heights when we considered areas we'd eventually want to end up in.
River Heights, UT
So last January, when Amy found a home for sale in River Heights, we were interested in taking a look. The home we found ended up selling before we even had a chance to go through it, but as we drove around the area we saw the new Saddle Rock sub division that had just gone in the year before. One of the builders had an open house, and another had a house for sale, so we headed over to take a look. As we looked through Immaculate Homes' open house they pointed out the back window to the freshly-graded cul de sac where they said they were accepting reservations on some lots in a brand-new subdivision that was going in. We noticed they had a good-sized corner lot still available, bordering the little farm in the back, so we put our deposit down on it the very next day. Lot - check! Here's an older version of the lot plan. Ours is Lot 32.
I wanted to see how our house might fit on the lot, so I grabbed the lot layout, then mashed it up with a screen grab from Google Maps of where the subdivision would be, along with a house from down the road that is a similar layout of what we were looking at. Looked good so far!
We absolutely love the area. Being neighbors to a little farm will take me back to my roots (sans the sprinkler pipe!). And Zollinger's tree farm is just behind 10th East.
Here's to open space!
The view of the Wellsville mountains that we'll have from the front of the house is beautiful!
From here we met with the team at Immaculate (Stacie, our awesome designer; and Kristina, our ever-patient agent) to start deciding on house plans. They started us out with a handful of existing base models, then allowed us to change them from there. We went back and forth on whether we wanted a two-story (above ground) house, or more of a rambler style. When we considered I was heading in shortly for knee replacement surgery, and that we were planning on this being our "forever" house, we decided we wouldn't want three flights of stairs to climb for the next 50 years, so we went with a rambler design. After multiple iterations, tweaks, additions, and subtractions, here's what the front of the house will look like. We absolutely love it!
We then had to pick our colors and styles of flooring, cabinets, doors, fixtures, etc., etc. It's amazing how many choices and decisions there are to make. How did people ever design houses and make all these choices without Pinterest and all of the great resources online?! I'm just glad that Amy and I have similar tastes - there were very few things we didn't totally agree on. Here are a few samples of some of the colors we're going with:
A sampling of our exterior colors. The rock will be a little different, retaining some of the reds, but with more gray.
Some of the flooring and paint colors we were looking to match.
Nice, soft carpet for the bedrooms and downstairs.
Choosing granite for the kitchen counters.
Since the lot we chose started out as an alfalfa field, we had to wait for the developer to work things out with River Heights City. This involved lots of patience, along with a little proactive prodding of City Council through some active citizen engagement. Go Amy!
The city was holding our phase ransom until the developer made sure every little item from the first phase was completed. Plans of being in by Thanksgiving began to slip away. After our second visit, they finally approved the plans and work was able to start.
The Lot Takes Shape
Not much was able to happen until the subdivision plans got approved, so before then we pretty much had a lightly-graded cul de sac and some beautiful alfalfa.
Our back yard will run from about the far-right edge of this picture, over to the middle of the sheds on the left.
May 31, 2015. Where's the swather? That's a pretty good-looking crop of alfalfa!
July 12, 2015
Once the developer got the OK, then utility work was able to begin.
July 15, 2015: Utility work begins
July 31, 2015
August 2, 2015
August 28, 2015 - The cul de sac is graded, with road base.
September 14, 2015 - Curb and gutter are in.
September 28, 2015 - The cul de sac is paved!
We have a feeling this won't be the last time we'll have to chase Jackson in the street.
November 14, 2015 - Ready to dig!
Floor Plans
Immaculate was great to work with us to get our floor plan exactly how we wanted it. We got electronic versions of the floor plans and placed all of our furniture, vehicles, pianos, backyard football fields - present and future - on the plans to make sure the spaces were working well.
Making sure the furniture fits
We also got some great advice and feedback from Amy's cousins, Natalie and Kurt Johnson, on recommendations they made on some of the areas. Natalie even drew up 4 or 5 different options of layouts we could consider. We basically took this one, sent it to our builder, and asked them to replicate what she had done.
It was great to be able to try new things, move things around, resize spaces, etc., until we got to just the right layout we loved.
We finally got our plans just how we wanted them and came up with the following floor plans (though we were even able to make a few more minor tweaks to placement of things like outlets, heater vents, lights, etc., once construction got going):
Front and left side views
Rear and right side views
Main floor
Downstairs
Our Lot
Construction Begins!
December 1, 2015 - Day 2 - we have an excavated basement!
December 5, 2015 - Day 6 - Footings are poured.
December 8 - Day 9 - Lots of dirt from the hole.
December 10 - Day 11 - Basement wall frames in place, ready to pour cement.
December 13, 2015 - Day 14 - Basement walls are up!
Day 14 - View from the street.
December 20, 2015 - Day 21
December 26, 2015 - Day 27
December 30, 2015 - Day 31 - Basement floor has been poured.
January 9, 2016 - Day 40, with the Christensen's.
January 16, 2016 - Day 47 - Our basement ended up with about a foot of snow in it. It made a mess when it all melted!
January 27, 2016 - Day 58 - Framing begins!
Framing begins.
February 2, 2016 - Day 64 - Floor joists in place.
February 6, 2016 - Day 68 - The floor goes in.
Amy's future recording studio.
February 6, 2016 - Day 68 - View from the street.
February 8, 2016 - Day 70 - The walls go up!! This is when it all got real, for me. We're really building a house!
February 12, 2016 - Day 75 - We have a roof!
February 12, 2016 - Day 75 - The framers let us come in and walk through the house. This was SO exciting to really experience what our house was going to be like for the first time. This is a view from our master bedroom, looking toward the front of the house into Anna and Jackson's rooms.
February 13, 2016 - Roof almost complete
February 17, 2016 - Day 79
Here's an update Amy and the kids sent me when I was on a work trip. They had taken some cookies over to the crew working on the house a couple days before, so they felt like it was a good investment when they saw the progress they had made.
February 26, 2016 - Day 88 - A view into our living room, dining room and kitchen.
February 26, Day 88 - View from our living room through the front door and my office.
February 26, 2016 - Day 88 - Here's a tour through the framed-in house.
Anna had fun with cousin Natalie Johnson painting a cute vanity we found at a garage sale a few months ago.
March 13, 2016 - Day 105
March 17, 2016 - Day 108
March 19, 2016 - Day 110 - I wanted to make sure we had fast, direct, wired ethernet lines to our TV, my office, Amy's studio, and a couple other places, so we ran some flexible ENT tubing to each of the areas to the storage room, where the network switch will be. Aaron and Jacob were awesome assistants and helped the process go smoothly and (relatively) quickly.
Aaron and Jacob helping pull the "Smurf Tube"
TV line - check!
So that's where we are so far. We've been told to expect construction to wrap up some time in May, so we're shooting for a June 1 closing. We'll keep updating this as progress continues to be made.
