So, I decided to start blogging to capture the entire process of building a home. Actually, building a dream home with my mom.

After much mind-changing, mom and I have decided to build a new custom home. Our process went something like this: Let’s build a custom home! Oh, wow, that’s expensive, let’s build a track home. Wait, what if we spend even less money and just modify mom’s existing home to work! EEEK! Adding on to mom’s is going to mean we are living in a construction zone and the kitchen will be out of commission for quite a while. Ugh. Ok, let’s build a track home. Hmmm, before pulling the trigger on building a track home that isn’t exactly where we want it or what we want, maybe we should talk to the custom builder again. Let’s build a custom home!

And, that’s how we came full circle to “Let’s build a custom home!”

We’re building with JR Lazaro Builders. The president of the company, John, is someone I went to high school with and have known for years. Mom and I both have a really good feeling working with John and appreciate his advice throughout the process, which includes both “spend money on this” as well as “don’t spend money on that.” After much back and forth, we finalized our floor plans and elevation!

On March 22, 2014, we signed the agreement with the builder.

Right now, this is very exciting, but it’s just starting, so we’ll see how I feel in 3 months.