Hey friends! We've had a lot of messages and questions about where things are at with our home build. There's been many highs and lows as we plugged along these past 6 months. We're really excited to share what's been happening! For those that are new here and want to catch up, feel free to read this post to find out about how we sold our house out of the blue, and this post about how we found our lake property.

It's certainly been a busy season of life. Here's a glimpse at the updates and what we've learned so far. 

U P D A T E S :

Terry passed his owner builder exam- as soon as we found our property, Terry told me it was his dream to act as the general contractor and build our home. It's not a desire I understand (or share) but hey, I'm all for new life experiences! It was something really important for him to accomplish and I can see why it would make our home even more sentimental to us. Because he already has a full-time job, this will certainly make life kinda nuts for a while, but I believe Terry's skillset would equip him for the challenge, so here we go! He studied hard and passed his exam in Sept. Wahoo! 

We finalized our home plan - this step took much longer than we anticipated but it's such a HUGE thing to knock off the list. In the end, we felt it was important to take the time and make sure we were absolutely in love with every detail. We wanted something custom that would suit our lifestyle and highlight the beautiful lake views. We worked with Joel Marples of 4th Dimension Design and Drafting to bring our vision to life. The end result was stunning and a perfect combination of Terry and I's vision for our dream home. Joel did an amazing job, and I can't wait to share more with you. If you'd like to see our 3D rendering, leave a comment below and perhaps we'll share that soon?!! 

We cleared our building site- this step made things feel real. Seeing the spot where our house would sit made us pretty giddy. To anyone else, it might not look like much yet, but there are so many steps just to get to that point that we were pretty excited to see progress.

Interior Design - as a designer, I am SLIGHTLY obsessed with all things design, including interior design. Part of my excitement for the opportunity to build is that it's the ultimate creative expression in a larger than life way. It's a chance to put my personal stamp on everything and create a home that reflects us. I knew it would be no easy task! I started working with AR Interiors and GFUNK Interior Design literally as soon as we signed the papers on our acreage. We'll have a design update very soon! 

^ home design by Joel Marples (4th Dimension), exterior details and sketch by Gregory Funk (GFUNK Interior Design) 

We got our building permit - we started Jan 2018 off with some excitement when we received the go-ahead with our building permit after being very patient! This was a really exciting step to finally have our permits! 

C H A L L E N G E S  / Things We've Learned So far:

WINTER - probably our biggest challenge so far has been the insane winter we're in the midst of. It's been one of the wettest winter's we've had in the Fraser Valley in years (and it's not over yet!) There have been surprise ice storms, lots of snow, discovering hidden ground springs as we dug our excavation and at one point our excavation hole looked like a swimming pool (see photo above). Since December, we've been running pumps to keep the hole dry and as we're a 40-minute drive away from our property, doing this multiple times a day has not been easy. If you're going to build, and are wanting advice, I'd suggest not starting your excavation in the winter. I share all this not to complain but in an effort to remain transparent and paint an accurate picture of what our experience has actually been like. 

On a positive note, seeing how much water is moving has given us the chance to determine where it's coming from and get it under control before we build. Thankfully we've done that now and we just passed our geotechnical inspection by the engineer. All that's holding us back now is waiting for a few sunny days so we can start our footings and the construction will begin!

STORAGE - One of the questions I've received quite often is how we managed to downsize from a 3000 square foot fully furnished home to a small suite. Where did we store our stuff? I'll be honest, this part is definitely an adjustment. As soon as we sold our home, I began selling as much as possible, as quickly as I could. Because we had to be out so fast, I didn't have the time to get rid of as much as we'd like (or even go through our stuff) so this meant storage was needed. We decided to store our precious belongings at BigSteelBox’s secure storage location in Abbotsford. This has been a gamechanger. It was quick and easy to load our Christmas decorations, furniture etc into their weather-proof box and when our home is ready, they will actually deliver the box directly to our property! In the meantime, if we need access to our box, it's not a problem. I would highly recommend them if you're in a similar boat. 

That's it for now. What would you like to know about our home build next?! 

Thanks for stopping by and joining our journey!

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