From the ground up: Building our forever home
It started with a dream.
The first house we bought was lovely. Just 15 minutes from Walt Disney World, but in a fairly quiet neighborhood, it seemed perfect at first. Unfortunately, a lot of other people felt the same way, it seemed, and over the next several years, the population surrounding us grew exponentially. New houses went up every day, and the once-quiet roads soon rivaled I-4 for congestion. We knew it was time to get out.
But, where to go? We didn't want to wind up back in the same situation just a few years later. Both my husband and I had spent several of our younger years in rural settings, and we decided the peace and quiet — and wide open spaces — of the country life were for us.
We also knew that we really didn't want to move again. Ever. So, we decided the best option for us was to design a house we could live with (in) for the rest of our days. It was exciting, and terrifying. We dreamed and discussed and drew pictures. We debated the merits of separate offices and whether we wanted to tackle the maintenance involved in having a pool. Finally, with a pretty good idea of what we wanted, and what we absolutely had to have, we took that dream to an architect, who created the plans we would need to make it a reality.
We found the perfect location to build our new home. Over 12 acres, surrounded by farms and citrus groves, and about a 45-minute drive from where I work, we knew this was the place as soon as we saw it. After buying the land, we immediately started looking for a contractor to help turn our plans into an actual house.
From the time we signed on with a contractor, it took about eight months to build our new home. There were plenty of bumps along the way, but in the end, we had a beautiful home...even if a few of the details changed and some compromises had to be made. We have a lot of years ahead of us to put on all the finishing touches and make it exactly what we envisioned.
