Our Dream House

About a year ago, Wayne came home one day and said he just slapped down a big ol' chunk of money as a down payment on a lot on the far south end of Lethbridge. Now you have to understand that this was a complete and utter surprise to me! We had discussed it (briefly) and even went around town looking for ideal lots to build our eventual dream home. Little did I know that Wayne would snowball the whole idea and move things forward about 5 years faster than I had been planning!

So before we knew it, we were the owners of a 3/4 acre lot right on the edge of city limits. There is very little out there other than farmland and the airport further down the highway. On a clear day, we can see Chief Mountain, but that is about the only interesting thing to see.

They broke ground in October. Any normal builder would have had an entire house built by now, but not our builder. He happened to own the lot we wanted, so we had no choice in who built our house. It has been 7 months and we just got the basement framed! We know a lot of people who have had this same builder and they all say he is painfully slow, BUT he does build an exceptional house. So that is what we have to keep reminding ourselves!

This is the house we will probably die in...I am NOT moving again. It is our dream home! Wayne and I first saw this house about 7 years ago when we lived in Utah. We were checking out a bunch of showhomes and absolutely fell in love with the floorplan. Unfortunately, the original builders don't sell their blueprints, so we had the basic floor plan and had an architect re-create the house for us. The pathetic thing is that we could buy this same house in Utah for about 1/3 of the price that it is costing us to build. We joked about "buying" the house in Utah and having them ship up the frames and trusses and assemble it here. The really sad thing is that even if the shipping was $20 000.00, it would've probably still cost a fraction of the price. Oh well, it's a good thing Wayne is also known as my "sugar daddy" now! (10 years of post secondary schooling is finally paying off!)

After almost three months of very little happening on the house (February-April), May has brought some renewed excitement. If Wayne wasn't constantly on the phone to our builder, nothing would be happening! We finally got some windows, in-floor heating in the basement and garage (a necessity with our Canadian winters!), concrete poured in the basement and garage and framing in the basement. There is even some dry wall in some places! Woohoo!



It has been raining for a week straight and there are pools of water around the house, there is pigeon poop everywhere, we still don't have all the windows in but things are moving along. Our builder says he is still aiming to have us in by July or August, but I'm thinking it will be closer to October or November.

I've been busy trying to make choices on flooring, cabinetry, colours and fixtures...so much to think about. I'm glad that this will be our only build and final house...it is way too stressful. With the new house on the horizon, I'm really noticing just how cramped we are in our present house. We've definately out grown this house and we all are anxious for more space!