Here's how it all began!

About this time last year we bought an acre of land in an old pecan orchard. I fell in love with the beautiful trees. (It took a while to sell David on the beauty of the trees. I think he only saw the mess of the trees.) Anyway, we decided to build our dream home. We probably looked at somewhere around 1,000 house plans with no luck. We just couldn't find the one. We decided to sit down with an architect and draw our own plans from scratch. Mr. Richard probably wanted to kill me, but he was a real trooper and we ended up with a set of plans that we are very excited about. In the fall of 2009, we put our house on the market. To our surprise it sold in just 3 weeks. (Getting to the closing table was quite another story!) Anyway, we finally closed on the sale of our old house and the construction loan for our new house on December 29, 2009. The no-start letter arrived on December 31st and we were good to go.

Our first task was to figure out where to place the house on the lot. Once that was done, 5 trees had to come down. (I really hated that, but we still have around 35 on the property. Pecans anyone?) A friend of David's dad came and cut the trees for firewood, so at least they will be put to good use. Here's a photo after the trees were cut and the dirt work was done.

Next came the footings and then the slab. I never thought I would be so excited to see concrete trucks. The slab was poured on January 15, 2010. One of the crew said that it took 88 yards of concrete. David, Lyndsey, Pa and I just stood around the crew's fire and watched for a long time. We just kept trying to figure out what was what. I asked Lyndsey if she could see her room and she just smiled and pointed up. It's on the second floor! :) We have talked about this for a long time, I can't believe that it is really happening.

The "framing package" was delivered on January 18th. We are praying for good weather. Tuesday the 19th was a great day, cloudy, but the temperature was near 60. We drove by after work and were amazed at how much progress had been made. They almost had the entire downstairs framed! It is supposed to start raining again tomorrow mid-day and continue for the next several days, so not sure how fast this process will be! It cracks me up to watch them work. No one talks.....not to each other......not to us! It's like watching an ant farm. They just keep working and working. Weather permitting, we should have everything framed in the next week or so.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I had no idea how many decisions would have to be made. It has only been 4 days since the slab was poured and we have already had to pick brick, mortar, stone, roof, windows, cabinets, and hardware. Next comes paint (trim and wall), stain colors for shutters and the front door, countertops, hardwood, carpet, tile and backsplash. It makes me tired just thinking about it all! I guess we won't be able to complain when it is all said and done since we picked everything. Ugly or not......it is ours forever!!!