Building a custom house is a lot like planning a wedding. It all seems like fun and games, and then you get into vendor selection, budgets, availability, and timelines and all of the sudden you start considering the perma-engagement wedding option of house-building… just staying where you are.
Charles and I worked with the builder for the better part of 3 months with no success at coming up with a floor plan. As a matter a fact, I think the only thing we successfully created was a lot of tension. After receiving several plans that were incorrect, lacking required must have’s, and 70K over our budget, we made the decision it was time to move on. I no doubt believe it was the best decision for both parties. I can only imagine they were no happier with us than we were with them 🙂
From there, Charles and I considered EVERY option: rent, live in, sell it, renovate, find a new builder. Each with substantial objections:
- Rent – We bought it so we could move out of the condo. While this would make us some money, it doesn’t solve the problem that we have outgrown the condo.
- Live in – The current house has no upstairs insulation, a washer dryer in the (non-insulated) master bathroom, and no space for a kitchen/dining table… none
- Sell it – Again, that would make us some money, but doesn’t really get us any closer to moving out of the condo
- Renovate – With all of the problems, it would be easier to tear it down… literally that is the official assessment from builders.
- Find a builder – Didn’t we just do that?!
Obviously, the smart option was to go shopping for a new builder. So we started all over and began the interview process again. We met with several on site and got bids from everyone. This time we took a different approach for selecting builders, and found that we were much more pleased with the selection. After two weeks of interviewing, and waiting on bids, we selected a new builder (Haven REI) last Wednesday and could not be more confident about the choice! Now…. What are we going to have them build?!?!