The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock...

Well, it looks like we're going to be building a house... As crazy as that may seem in this economy, it's actually a fantastic time to build. Land prices, interest rates, and materials are all way down, so we can save quite a bit of money. Also, most subcontractors are not very busy, so their bids are quite low, and there is not a lot of lead time needed in scheduling them. We have done this before, so we definitely know what we are getting into...lots of phone calls, running to pick up supplies, making choices, budgeting, scheduling, checking on people, and being at the job site quite a bit. But, we have figured that we can get it exactly the way we want it for a fraction of what you would usually think something like that would cost. We don't use a general contractor, and that saves a lot right there, but also we can take the time to scour for the best prices on everything, and that helps tons also.

Another thing that we really want to do is have the kids very involved in this as well. When we built our last house, the older ones were still little and don't remember much. But we're hoping for this to be a family project, where they also take some ownership in it all. Some of the things we hope to have them do are site cleanup, seeing how it all comes together, realizing how a construction budget works, and hopefully also learning some useful skills, like measuring, nailing, painting, etc. (at least the older ones).

Right now we are waiting on the city to issue the permit - it's already been a week and a half and there's not been a lot of progress. But we hope to break ground in the next week or two. I'll post some pics here occasionally, but for a more detailed look at our project, we have a construction blog and plans on http://www.barnesbuilt.com/ where you can see a little more. Here's a photo of the lot as it is now:

It will definitely be a lot of work, but we're up to the challenge, and it will be cool to see it go up. The only thing we are sad about it leaving our current neighborhood and ward - they are fantastic, and it will be a big adjustment to start over. But, we will only be 6 minutes down the road, so we will definitely keep in touch with them. A new chapter of our lives begins... ☺