Wow have we been talking about this for a loooooong time! Four 1/2 years ago we decided we had outgrown our first home(1st misconception) and decided to build one that was bigger and way too pricey.
This (below)
was our first home!
Our baby! She welcomed us not so warmly to Austin but we grew to love her after many tears, lots of sweat, and in the end she was a true gem that we were sad to leave. We will never forget all of the long late nights of sanding, hammering, ripping down and building back up.
Here is my father in law helping clean up after I sanded some of the walls in the Master.
Our friend Brent drove 5 hours to come stay with us and help us out. He even bought us a reciprocating saw! What a sweet friend! We definitely needed it and I am sure he was thinking "I will never get out of here if I don't go buy them one" Just kidding he just has a big huge generous heart!
Oh and the kitchen...We lived without one for almost a whole year. Yep we washed dishes in the backyard and guest bathroom. I have yet to post about that transformation...I 'll get to it one of these days!
Here are hubby and his brother putting up the new sheetrock
Here is hubby applying the slate back slpash tile..Side note...it is not wise to do the backsplash before the countertops are in! We learned that one the hard way. We were younger, dumber, and anxious to get her done!
Oh and of course we had to work in some play time before all of that. Yes this is all out of order but you get it..I know you do! Seriously demo can be fun!
We have mostly fond memories of sleeping on an air mattress in our first master bedroom cringing at the thought of HUGE roaches crawling over us at night. We actually even had one get up on it's hind legs and run after hubby one night. FREAKED us OUT!
Ok. Enough about our first love....
The hubby had a new job that we thought would help us afford to move up a bit (2nd big, big, huge misconception). and we knew we would make some decent $ when we sold our first house. This was 4 years ago and decent homes were flying off the market quick. From the get go I think we were both nervous about taking on such a big mortgage but we continued to move forward because the truth is we are just thrifty and big purchases make us ill every time they come up. Heck I once lost a whole nights sleep when we ordered a dining room table that was $400 and the next morning I confessed my upset stomach to the hubby and called and cancelled it. He built us one instead and the truth is we may have only saved a $100 but it made us feel better;)!
Why spend your hard earned dough when you can build it was our motto!
During the whole process we took lots of pics of the model home that would be like ours. You can see how the builders win you over with all of their finishes and decorating tricks! As I look back at these today I realize how much my taste has changed. Don't get me wrong it is a nice house my decor preferences have just changed.
The floor to ceiling 2 story stone fireplace you can see on the right had me at hello...
Upon entering the front door you saw this...
This was a little catwalk to the master
Formal dining
Cozy office
Love me some 8 foot doors
It was very open..almost too open. I had an inkling it would be a very loud house. Of course now as a mom of 3 I know that even the smallest most closed in places are very loud.
Open hallway to the bedrooms
Looking down from the gameroom
Kids rooms all model homeish
Looking towards the gameroom
Master
Master Bath
Here is my man hangin in what we thought would be our game room. We are not sad about this..It is really o.k. We know there was and is a plan for us!
the view of the fireplace(I mean the living room) from the kitchen
This is exactly how my pantry looks
So that was the model home..
Here was our house in progress...It was fun and overwhelming all at the same time
We would stop by after work(scrubs and all) and check on the progress with our little buddy!
Checking out the back
We probably would have been fine but the thought of potentially ending up house broke was heartbreaking and it was taking the fun out of it! At the time our son was probably about 7 months old. A couple of months before the house was to be done we found out he would be welcoming a sibling into his world much sooner than anticipated! Learning this helped us seal the deal (or unseal it I guess). We decided to pull out of the process of building. Thankfully the builder gave us our earnest money back and we decide to continue on with moving yet to a home much more in our comfort zone. So after spending way too much time making decisions about floor plans, picking out finishes, and making trips out to see the building in progress we were done.
We put our first love on the market, she sold in 3 days, we paid off our very disappointing business loan(whole other story but thankful we could pay it off) and moved on! To be continued........
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