BUILDING A HOUSE - WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU

We are building a house.  It turns out that building is not as much fun as it sounds.  Some of it is fun, and we are super grateful to be able to be doing it.  And I'm sure once its over it'll all be worth it.  But right now we are smack dab in the middle of it, and some days I can't help but want to rewind back to our old house and never, eeeeeever, EVER even think about moving anywhere else - ever again.  Is this how everybody feels while building/moving, or is it just me?

The thing with building is that if you haven't ever done it before, it sounds like this awesome adventure.  Kind of like going to the zoo in the middle of summer with your kids - it sounds like it will be so fun... before you get there. But it turns out that the zoo is hot and smelly in the summer, the kids are grouchy and sunburned after an hour, the guy in front of you on the carousel has some serious B.O., and you are wondering how you could have possibly volunteered to leave your air conditioned house to come here.  Yep, that pretty much sums it up for me up to this point.  Let me give you a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Building in the winter = plan on a little bit slower time frame, due to weather, etc.

{picture this covered with a foot of snow}

Building this winter with record freezing temps and record snow fall = your hole and foundation walls sitting for TWO. SOLID. MONTHS.


Living in a rental house for 4-6 months with most of your stuff packed away in boxes = totally doable, right?

Living in a rental house for what turns into 9+ months with stuff you suddenly NEED packed away in boxes, and then having the basement (where 90% of the boxes are, of course) FLOOD = kind of sucky.



Thinking and dreaming and pinning your little heart out while you plan things like gorgeous lighting, solid hardwood, and marble counter tops = so much fun (and too many late nights on Pinterest).

{source: decor pad}

Finding out that your budget and builder allowances cover about 1/4th of what you would actually like to do = cold, hard reality check (Marble costs HOW MUCH? And it stains?! The Pottery Barn light fixture I love would take up HALF of my lighting allowance?!  Yikes.  You get the picture).




But it hasn't been all bad.  And we will definitely appreciate the crap out of this house when we finally get to move in.

{the first week of December, 2012}

{Almost 2 months later...finally making some progress, in spite of the snow - yeah!}

{Starting to look like a real, live house}

{We are actually a little bit further along than this, I'll have to remember to take a picture}

 {the view from our bedroom - this will make it all worth it!}

I'm going to share the little tips and tricks we are learning along the way and give you progress updates as we go. So far, my best advise is to expect the unexpected.  Things are (most likely) not going to go as smoothly as possible and you just have to learn to roll with it.  We didn't really believe people when they told us that, but I am here to tell you it is tah-rue.  Building will mostly likely take more time/money/patience than you planned on - and that is more often the rule than the exception.

If you have any advice for me, feel free to chime in.  I'm sure we can use it!

-KIM