How did our journey begin? Let's just say that we have an interesting path to where we are now, but we will begin with last June, 2016. Bryan and I were living in a wonderful apartment in a gated community with 2 bedrooms, a ginormous garage for storage, a large yard, pool, playground, tennis courts, gym, and so many trees. We knew that this was not going to be our home forever, as we both wanted something more permanent. I had previously owned a home, but he had not. I was actually experiencing apartment living for the first time but knew that this wasn't our forever home. We began looking at real estate, but the idea of building was still in the back of our minds. We honestly didn't think that it was something we were going to be able to do, as land in our area is sparse and very pricey. We even took a trip with my parents to visit a model home about two hours away in Ohio (The Hampton floor plan) after meeting with Wayne Homes a few days prior. What we didn't realize was that even though we decided it would be "easier" to just buy a home versus building, we yearned for a home that we could call our own that was build just for us.
So, back to June 2016. We made an appointment with Wayne Homes in Belmont, Ohio just to see what it was all about and how far out of reach it probably was. After all, we both are employed in education and we all know how that is the dream job full of money. (Please detect my sarcasm). Neither of us do what we do for the money. We are in our profession of school psychology because we are both VERY passionate about mental health. Anyway, we met with Jeanette at Wayne Homes who gave us a run down of everything. We brought my parents with us who had always wanted to build as well. Jeanette was very honest and open about everything. She showed us different floor plans within our budget, told us how things add up, the process, etc. I left there thinking that the idea of building did seem stressful, but worth every second. Buying a home would be just as stressful, but the outcome of building a home was a dream I never thought would happen.
After a few months of intense morning sickness, (oh yeah, did I mention we decided to have a baby too at the same time as building? Go big or go home is our motto) we kind of put the building idea on the back-burner. Bryan was still looking for land and homes while I spent the majority of my time huddle over the porcelain throne hugging it so tightly. Bryan came across some land later that fall in a few different areas of our county. One of them was the most promising, so he immediately reached out to Jeanette to let her know. Mind you, she had followed up with us on a few occasions to see if we were still interested in building. She was NEVER overbearing and we appreciated that so much. Well, after reaching out to her, the process kind of just happened. We met with the land owner and spoke to him, who will also end up being our neighbor. He gave us lots of insight and helped us answer questions. Next, Bryan worked with Jeanette and our soon to be field manager, Tim. Tim came to the site and knew that there was a small creek nearby and questioned if it would be a good place to build a home. That insight was something that we were not expecting. Bryan worked with Tim as well as the land owner to set up a day to have soil engineers come and map out the house so they could test the soil for water. A week before Christmas, Bryan and I went in the cold and flagged out where we thought the house would sit so the engineers could dig down and do the testing. It was a very cold evening for this but hey, you do what you gotta do.
We got the results back from the testing and they showed that the soil would easily hold a skyscraper. We decided to build back a little further on the land so that it would be drier. Mind you, when Bryan chimes in to write in this blog, his account of all of this will be a lot better than mine. So, I'll stop here for now with the soil situation.
A few days prior to this, we had signed our contract that locked us into a price of the home. This did not lock us into an actual contract by any means, we just knew that the price increase was coming up and we needed to lock in a price before that happened. So, we picked our beautiful floor plan, the Jamestown. We did not want 4 bedrooms, but rather 3 bedrooms and a spacious loft. Other must haves on our list were 2.5 bathrooms, a pantry, upstairs laundry, separate family room and living room, a front porch, and over 2,000 square feet. The Jamestown fit those needs.
We ended up purchasing the land, the home, and including our "cushion" all into one loan through a bank that Wayne Homes utilizes. We still haven't closed on it yet, as we are waiting for our pre-construction meeting to take place before that process happens. So far, these people have been MORE than helpful.
Our colors appointment was made at the end of January, because I was getting close to my due date and didn't want to travel too far. Our closest Wayne location is about 1.5 hours away. Bryan and I took a day off of work and met with Mary. But before I tell you all about the fun that is color day, let me back up again. Two days prior to this meeting, my husband was doing some thinking. He took the Hampton floor plan (which I felt looked like a townhouse and was way to squished - the model we saw had four bedrooms instead of a loft), and he showed me the new price increase. He then added in all the new features that we wouldn't have to pay for, added square footage to the house, made it much larger, and low and behold we had a home the size of the Jamestown with higher end finishes for $1,000 cheaper. We were shocked. We called Jeanette that evening who once again, was extremely helpful, and sent us a new contract to sign before we came to our colors appointment. Yes, it was a spur of the moment switch, but it gave us more of what we wanted for less. Plus, we were able to now have stone, shake, gables, bump outs, and all the fancy things.
Color Day!!! When we drove to Wayne Homes, it was pretty exciting to realize what we were doing. Without a doubt, we were way ecstatic to be picking out everything. We sat with Mary who showed us a blueprint of the outside of the home. It was incredibly neat to see the home the way we envisioned it. Mary worked with us for awhile on changing the inside of the house, moving the laundry, creating a pantry, moving rooms, making the bathroom upstairs face a different way, adding the square footage, moving closets, you name it. We were floored with what she did. It was a totally different home than the original floor plan. Next, we started picking everything out. We chose our siding, our stone, our shake, flooring, countertop (which was the hardest for us!), fans, bathroom fixtures, etc. We left there a few hours later feeling very happy. She also gave us another detailed list of each thing we were buying and adding to our base price. The money is always right in front of you so there are no questions asked. Now, we are waiting on the pre-construction meeting. The only concern is that this baby will make her debut on or around that date...
