Greys & Things

Five years ago today, we moved into our “dream house”.  We purchased the property in March 2001 and had planned on waiting about five years to build on it.  After 9/11, we decided to speed up our building.  We designed the house ourselves and then took the plans to an architect to draw them up. We broke ground in April 2003.  My husband served as the general contractor and did a lot of the work himself.  I helped where I could and did a lot of running for him. We visited the site every single day to make sure things were going as we wanted. We lived about 30 minutes away, so that took up all our week nights.  I think we spent every single weekend working on the house.  We had many setbacks as is normal when you are building a house on your own.

We had problems getting piers poured,  moldy drywall was delivered, the wrong flooring was installed in our kitchen.  We had trouble with the electric company.  They decided that the side of our house was actually the back of our house and made us move the electric panel.  We never had problems with our inspectors.  We didn’t always pass inspections, but they were very fair and nice to us.

Barney, our cat, died the day that we were picking out our kitchen cabinets.  Jeff ended up doing that without me.  I was really surprised with what he chose, but the cabinets ended up being a perfect match for our wood trim. 

We had many setbacks and it was stressful.  We chose things that were different.  Jeff, hubby, said we were country/modern, if there is such a thing.  We have a stone fireplace in the great room and we have the matching stone above our Viking cook top in the kitchen.  Our great room and kitchen are basically one big room.  I will take photos when I have the house nice and clean.  The Viking cook top is absolutely wonderful.  It has four burners, a griddle and a grill.  I use the griddle almost daily.  I knew living out here that I would not be able to eat out as much, so I wanted to have fun cooking and I do.  I also have a double oven which is wonderful.  I love my kitchen.

We did another thing that is unique.  Our bedroom connects to a huge walk in closet that leads to another walk in closet.  If you go straight through the closet, you are in our laundry room.  Laundry has never been more convenient.  I am just steps away from the closet.  We have our dresser drawers in our closet, so that makes it even nicer.

We moved in before the house was finished and five years later, there are still things unfinished.  We need to complete a deck, put up a retaining wall and finishing painting doors. 

Since living here, Sami, our cocker spaniel has died.  We have adopted two greyhounds.  We have installed a fence for the dogs.  We have planted gardens, picked blackberries which I tried to turn into jam.  The jam was so hard we couldn’t get a spoon into it.  I lost a good paying job.  Yes, there have been good times and bad.

We enjoy seeing the wildlife which includes deer, turkey and raccoons. There are lots of birds which we feed. We put in a water feature outside my office window and I enjoy watching the birds visit. In the summer, I have a hummingbird feeder outside my office window. It brings me a lot of pleasure.

Here are a few photos of the outside of the house.  These photos are from a few summers ago.