Building Our Dream Home

The Floor plan

2013-02-27T12:30:00.001-08:00

After many requests, I have decided to post our floor plan. Please remember the copyright laws. If anyone is interested in the plan I can give you the name and phone number to our designer. I'm sure she still has it on file and could just sell it to you.

1st Floor:

2nd Floor:

If there is any confusion, the house was built as a mirror image of the plan. We decided to flip the plan when we found our the grade of our land.

I am happy to answer any questions and love to hear comments!

The Kitchen

2013-02-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder....I have lost track of the order that things happened while building. When our lives got flipped upside down by the sale of our old house we had to live with relatives with NO internet and very few of our things.

With that said, after drywall came hardwood floors, then cabinets, tile, interior doors, and one of the last things was paint. Our painter was AMAZING! If you are in the St. Louis area I will highly recommend him!

So, here is the kitchen...

All the decisions were tough, but I am very pleased with the way it turned out!

We went with 5" hard maple flooring

And Cherry Java cabinets from Waypoint

Next to the refrigerator is what we call our "bar" area. The counter is temporary. We have a 2" think solid piece of oak that is going there, but it has to dry out more. Otherwise it will warp.

The plywood doesn't look to bad though.

We scored a lot of deals to get the "high end" kitchen we wanted. The refrigerator was scratch and dent. Something I learned while shopping for appliances and please take note, this is huge!

The warranty will fix the "scratch and dent" parts! They will even replace an entire door!

Chad did the tile backsplash. Looks good, huh? We didn't plan on doing a backslash right away, but then found out the county requires one behind a sink.

The island is a custom color from kabinart . Waypoint didn't offer custom colors. We had to buy the legs at the store, then they sent them to Kabinart to be painted with the cabinets.

I LOVE my rangehood!

And farmhouse sink! We get so many compliments on the size of the 36" one compartment sink.

And the CeasarStone Nougat countertops! I fell in love with the kitchen the day they installed the counters!

The table from the old house fits quite nicely.

We love the open floor plan! Here is a nice view of the floor.

The light over the table is temporary. We have an antique wood chandelier that I painted to match the island. It's not done being wired, so we put a temp for inspection.

PS- The empty places on next to the window will eventually be open shelving. They are also 2" thick solid oak that is still drying out.

I would love to share with you the brands and materials and where I found all the awesome deals. Just leave your comments and questions.

Siding and More

2013-02-02T13:17:00.001-08:00

So, it's been a while since I posted...again, but like I said in the beginning, building is chaotic. Especially with 3 kids ages 5 and under. In October we received an offer on our old house and closed the first week of November. Our house wasn't finished yet so we had to live with my mother for two months. She doesn't have internet! Can you believe that? There are places in 2013 where internet is still not available!

Needless to say, I am trying to catch up.

We are now living in our house! Yay! Everything with the house is finished, except the stone on the fireplace and the yard. It's now February and MUDDY! There's no grass, and no way to "move" mud to do the finish grade. We love the outdoors so I am really looking forward to a yard!

It's been so long and everything happened so fast that I'm not quite sure of the order of things, but here are some new photos...

Siding, exterior doors, garage doors and concrete...

Vinyl Shakes under the front porch

If anyone is wondering colors, brands, styles, ect. please comment or email me personally. I would be happy to share! I know I searched and searched for images when I was deciding.

Then came insulation and drywall. The pics were pretty repetitive so here are a few...

We did blown-in insulation with the wet application and 2x6 walls. Our hopes are to have a very well insulated house so we can afford to heat it :)

Our old house was built in the 50's as a summer home...a.k.a...built cheaply. When we were rehabbing it we found out the insulation was newspaper and brown paper bags wadded up between the walls! Can you believe that? Well, at least is caused us to make sure we have a well insulated house now!

We have extreme heat and extreme cold here in Missouri. Sometimes in the same week!

The master bedroom

Upstairs bedroom

Playroom/loft area

I love the ceiling detail! I am a detail person...gotta have details. I'm sure everyone involved in this house is tired of hearing me say that sentence!

The Walls Go Up!

2012-10-22T18:40:00.001-07:00

So, it's been a long time since I posted! Holy cow we have been busy! I never knew that building a house could take so much time. But, when you are selling a house at the same time as building your houses become your full time job. No joke! The good news is our current house has sold and we are in the process of moving. The bad news is our new house still isn't done. We will be "displaced" for about 2 months. But, I am NOT complaining. I am very happy our house has sold. Did I mention we also have 3 kids ages 5 and and under? Yeah, that's also a full time job.

So, here these photos show the first floor being framed.

The first floor seemed to go up pretty fast. The second floor was more complicated and took quite a bit longer, but there is so amazing framing work!

Please excuse the children in the photos.

This is from the first floor looking up to the second.

And the first floor looked a lot different with a ceiling.

Stairs. Yay!

And then the roof goes on.

Remember when I mentioned the amazing framing work? Here are some photos.

It looked so cool we didn't want to cover it up! The steel cross beams are pretty awesome too. A crane put those up.

So stay tuned. I now have a roof, siding, concrete, plumbing, electric, and drywall. More pics will coming soon.

I would love to hear your comments and questions!

From the Ground Up

2012-06-26T15:14:00.004-07:00

Probably the very most important thing to me is to have a basement! I've lived in Missouri my entire life and somehow or another have never lived somewhere with a basement. In the six years that we have lived here we have had too many close calls with tornados. I must have a basement.

So, on February 18, 2012 we broke ground!

Day 1- Taking down trees and digging a little...

After about two weeks of digging and breaking rock (aka breaking the bank) we finally have the foundation dug!

The forms are up and ready for concrete!

Of course, nothing is simple and easy. A pump truck was need to to pump the concrete into the the forms for the basement walls.

And after just a couple of days... I have my very first basement!

The Plan

2012-06-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Six years ago Chad and I moved into our current house; our starter home. We planned on rehabbing and reselling it right away. Instead we started a family with the birth of our first daughter. We always knew we wouldn't stay in this house and we knew we wanted to build a new house. So, we set our eyes on a piece of land that we thought was beautiful and spent the next couple of years saving to buy it.

So, about 2 years ago we officially bought the land; 3 acres on a lake in Missouri. Then we began saving and planning to build.

We looked at thousands of house plans before deciding to have a custom house designed. Apparently, we are picky people!

In a book we found a house that we love the look on the outside, so we based our design on it. That house is called the Tucker Bayou house (A Southern Living house) and is pictured above.

This is our design.