Building A House

My dad suggested that I blog about the house building process (hi, Dad!).  I haven't really blogged much about it yet, but I did type up this post over a month ago (sometime back in March) when the whole process was still somewhat novel... I'll start here.

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(Our pile of dirt)

So, we're building a house.  This is not something we were necessarily planning on doing, but it made the most sense for the area we're moving to.  We signed the purchase agreement in February and are slowly getting started.  We'll get just what we want for about the same price we'd pay for a house that we could fix up to become just what we want.

But that's just it- building a house is all about getting what you want.  And we don't necessarily know what we want.  We've spent the last nine years taking whatever we can get.  That's what you do in graduate school.   You take whatever you can get.  The hand-me-down clothes, making-ends-meet-hand-outs, and hand-scrubbed-again-and-again-furniture has been good enough for us.  We've always had just enough.  And we've figured out how to make do.

Now we've got people asking us if we want hardwood floors or tile, plain granite or gaudy granite, bay or box windows.  And could we please submit paint samples and exterior samples and pictures of what exactly it was we had in mind when we decided to add an extra room onto the back of our house?

And they say "yes" to everything.  We can get whatever we want- they will do whatever we want- as long as we are willing to pay for it, of course.  I guess that's the way it is in life, but it's just annoying.  In some ways I just feel like a little kid who needs to know her boundaries.  Tell me no once in a while, please!

And truthfully, there are many things about it in which I just don't really care.  Just make it look nice and let me know when I can move in!  I have a rather short attention span when it comes to stuff like this, which makes me grateful that Jason is my counterpart- he can hone in on a problem and spend hours, days, months if necessary tweaking it to his measure of perfection (thesis, anyone?)  So when I've long since stopped thinking about the benefits of shakes versus smart siding above the garage, he is still obsessing over which one will be just right for our house.  That is good news for both of us.  It's just the right level of fun for each of us, and it's still getting done.

These are not problems to complain about.  Not to anyone.  And I'm not trying to complain about the problems themselves, just the process of dealing with them.  There are times when I really stink at decision-making, and this happens to be one of those times.  I just haven't spent the time poring over decorating books and blogs and pins that I guess I should have to be ready to make some of these decisions.  I'm afraid that we are going to end up with an awful-looking house because we are out of our league.

Thankfully, we have our awesome architect Bill on our side, and he has helped steer us away from any truly awful decisions.  And truthfully, just about everything can be switched up later if we really, really hate it... as long as we're willing to pay for it.  :)

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So that was over a month ago.  In March we hurried out to Iowa to pick out our finishes, hold the plans and specs meeting and get on with the building.  But then the builder fired his realtor.  And they couldn't figure out some of the details that we wanted to change on the floorplan.  And the new realtor wanted to go over everything again to make sure that it was all correct (a very good thing to do, since it wasn't).  And then April came and we moved here.  And it started to rain.  And we decided to expand the foundation.  And then they finally dug the hole.  And it started to rain again.  And it rained... and rained... and rained...

So we went from a glimmer of hope that looked like this-

 to a swimming pool that looks like this, as of today-

And it's raining again.

Overall, the process is just taking a really. long. time.  And every day that goes by that progress isn't being made is another day that we are in our charming two-bedroom apartment, where we are snug and cozy and driving our neighbors crazy (the first of the wall-bangings started last week- what a welcome into the building!).

It's a very interesting place to be in, as I mentioned above, because these aren't really the kinds of problems that anyone wants to hear you complain about.  Oh, boo-hoo, you get to build a house just the way you want it in a neighborhood you love and in the meantime you have a nice apartment to live in (really, it is nice- vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, fluffy carpet, a dishwasher that actually works- that is somewhat life-changing).

But it's just not what I expected.  As long as we don't have a house, we don't have our home in Iowa.  It's temporary.  There are boxes upon boxes of our life waiting to be unpacked- we're currently functioning on 5 plates, 5 towels, 5 pillows, etc.  It feels like a never-ending transition phase.  At this rate, we are hopeful that the house will be done before school starts up again in the fall.  Hopefully, I'll have happier things to say as that time draws closer.  In the meantime, I guess I'd better go tell the kids to stop jumping off the bunk beds.