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We’re building our dream home in my childhood hometown! We are so excited. We’ve been yearning for more space ever since we got Winston (re: yard). We’ve completely outgrown our townhouse and not to mention, we are just sick of being on top of other people :) we are ready for a big yard and lots and lots of SPACE! Oh, and my dream kitchen!!

We have been dreaming, planning, budgeting, saving and saving for the day we could build our dream home. Both Jason and I have always known that in order to get our ‘dream home’ in this area, we would have to build it. There were many spec homes with various builders that had just a few things missing and we knew we were headed down the build road.

We knew we wanted a new construction home (either already built or one to be built) but we weren’t sure which option would be best for us. We actually even placed an offer on an existing new construction home that was move-in ready but we retracted our offer because of the crazy contingencies from the realtor and it wasn’t *quite* what we wanted so we finally sat down with a builder. We chose our builder because we noticed, after looking at a bunch of houses, the ones we really loved were all from the same builder so we knew it was a sign!

We actually signed the contract in March but there hasn’t been much progress up until now because the permit process in the town we’re moving to is very very long and strict. Everything finally got approved to move forward in August and just last week, they demolished the existing house that was sitting on our lot, cut down some trees, and leveled it all out.

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The above photo is the house that used to be there. Crazy, isn’t it? We are in between two other new construction homes and thankfully the neighborhood we are moving into is all pretty much new construction so we won’t have to worry about loud noises when we move in. And it’s a very quiet neighborhood with very little traffic and it’s a dead end, so it’s perfect for an alert dog like Winston ;)

We are most excited about how big our yard is going to be. The below photo is just half our yard. There is more yard to the left of the photo that I couldn’t capture! Winston is going to be in heaven! We are too because we have dreamed of the day we could just open the door out to our yard to have him go to the bathroom, haha – we also will have a large deck where we will be able to entertain and grill on summer nights.

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There is just so much within this building process that I’ve never realized until we started doing this. SO MANY DECISIONS to make and it’s really crazy how you have to plan for the future with a new construction home. We have three design meetings coming up and the first meeting, we have to talk about the electrical plan and where we want electrical outlets and whatnot. Basically, you have to think about each room and what the layout potentially will be like so you don’t waste an electrical outlet or miss anything!

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Have you built a home before or have done a big home renovation? What are some things you added to your house that you absolutely cannot live without? 

For example, we are adding a pot filler above our stove, a gas line out to our deck for the grill…but I want to know what else! I don’t want to miss a thing! Tell me, tell me!

I will be blogging about the entire process from start to finish so don’t forget to follow along on social media! Snapchat for sure but also all the other channels with the hashtag #tablefortwoblogHOME

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14 Comments

  1. One of the things that I cannot live without anymore is washer/dryer on the upper floors. Not having to drag your laundry all the way downstairs only to bring it right back up after its done is life changing!

    1. Omg, I canNOT wait to have a washer/dryer on the upper floor. I really hate going down to the basement right now just to do laundry!!

  2. Ooh this is so exciting. Congrats! Haven’t built a home (we bought a relatively new condo last year), but your post reminded me of this blogger I followed a while back when she was building her dream home. Looking back on her posts could give you some inspiration. You may have heard of her… her blog is called Sunny Side Up and she built her home in San Diego (and it’s impressive!). My condo must-haves were A/C and a gas line for our BBQ haha priorities. I would say make sure you have enough bathroom counter space if you’re anything like me ;)

  3. SO exciting!! We are right along side of you. We finally did all of our design choices last week, and let me warn you – plan on spending more than you thought you would. Haha!! We ended up spending 1 1/2 times what we originally budgeted on design. Oops! We’ll still be doing some things after that we can do cheaper ourselves, but I’m SO excited to see how it all comes together. And I’m excited to watch your process, too!! When is yours supposed to be finished? We are supposed to break ground in the next week to 10 days, and finish in February. It’s hard to be patient!

    1. Gah, I am texting to you today :) it’s a little too early to do that right now, haha – we are slated to be done March 1!! Omg, we are totally doing this together :) I can’t to talk to you more about this next week too! xoxo

  4. my friend is going through this process right now…i will have to refer her to follow this thread. i want a house mainly for Bailey (and outdoor grill for me).

  5. While we’ve not built from the ground up, we’ve renovated our home several times. Lessons learned: it takes longer than you think it will and will cost more (plan 15% more).
    Things I can no longer live without (in no particular order):
    under cabinet lighting
    lots of outlets (GFI in kitchen & bath, now code)
    multiple ways to use the same space (think how you can re-arrange a room to use it during different seasons)
    vent-free fireplace (alternate heat source)
    wood floors (we laid every board ourselves) – easier clean up with dog hair
    minimal carpet/rugs (only 1 room has carpeting)
    cabinets that use the height of the kitchen (42″ for us, we are all also tall folks)
    stereo space – ponder where you want those speakers and the wiring to them
    closets – but no dressers!
    deep drawers in the kitchen that can fit an 8 qt stockpot
    smooth top stove (ours is 16 years old and going strong. we cook almost every night)
    an under the counter/inside the cabinet trash can that pulls out (consider purchasing a separate kit to install this rather than having the kitchen cabinet company’s version – you lost the cabinet to any other option)

    That’s probably enough of a list! Have fun!

  6. Congratulations! I’m looking forward to reading about the entire process of your new house build. I’ve heard of people installing USB ports next to the electrical outlets. Thought that was a great idea.