the one about what I have learned from building a house

This dream began years ago.

We were going to buy this beautiful 40 acre property just a couple houses down from his parents’ home. We were going to renovate the 75 year old house that sat upon the land. We would live there and be happy.

The end.

No. That’s not what happened.

Sometime in 2015, we entered into an agreement to purchase the land and home. At some point in 2016, we began meeting with a general contractor and an architect and decided that the house would be better off demolished and built new as opposed to renovating the existing home. By the end of 2016, the contractor we had been working with for 8 months dumped us, leaving us confused, angry, and hopeless. At the beginning of 2017, we had a new plan, and we were the general contractors. The old house came down, a new one started to go up, and now, at the end of the first quarter of 2018, we are about to move in. For real. It’s happening.

While this is very much a new beginning, it is also an ending to a very tumultuous 18 months. To say we have “learned a lot” through this process is the understatement of the year. We have learned an incredible amount of life lessons, and I’d like to take the time to reflect on them.

1. Subcontractors are human beings, too.

Probably not what you expected me to say, huh? It is no secret from past posts or my Facebook that we have had a heck of a time with some of our subcontractors. I have complained and vented so many times about them that I have literally grown tired of doing it.

We were warned that this would be a difficult aspect of managing the project on our own, and all the warnings were correct. However, we are all human who are capable of making mistakes and doing wrong to others. You and I probably do it everyday. While we have had people fail to meet our expectations and quite honestly do things that we could probably seek legal restitution for, we are choosing to accept that these are instances of human error that we will forgive. It is for our own sanity and peace of mind that we let these injustices go. When humans build houses, there will be flaws. Things will not be done perfectly like they would be done with a machine or a computer. There is a certain amount of imperfection that we must accept. The unprofessionalism is a little harder to swallow, but we are working on it.

2. Everyone has “a guy.”

In our quest for the perfect subcontractors, we solicited a ton of advice from friends and family, both in person and on Facebook. What we found was that everyone has “a guy,” meaning that everyone has a person who they swear by…a person they would recommend for the job. We took many of those recommendations seriously and reached out to “their guys,” many times just to have no-shows, poor service, or terrible experiences. How could that be possible? How could our very reputable, solid friends and family have a positive experience with a person, recommend that person to us, and then we have a completely different experience? It seems to be that construction is finicky that way. While crowd-sourcing and getting a lot of opinions from friends and family can be reassuring and almost addicting, it can sometimes lead to more confusion, hurt feelings, and dead-ends. Many times, your best friend’s “guy” or your dad’s “guy” is not any more reputable or professional than the “guy” you find on your own.

3. Your marriage will be tested.

People joke all the time, saying, “Well, you guys have built a house and are still married, so that’s something!” And that’s the truth. That is something. I would say that Luke and I have a very solid relationship. We have been together for 17 years now. Our bond has been tested many times. We attended separate colleges. We endured all the financial, physical, academic, and emotional stresses of medical school and residency. We have four children and have had two miscarriages. And of course, there’s all of the other “normal” highs and lows of a young married couple.

But nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing, prepared us for what we would go through while building this house. It isn’t just disagreeing over paint colors or wanting different finishes on the counter tops. It’s dealing with unexpected setbacks with added expenses, and wondering where that money is going to come from. It’s managing panic attacks and anxiety and stress and putting on a brave face for each other, even when we are completely and totally faking it. It’s seeing your husband for an hour after work before he turns around and goes back out to the house until midnight. It’s shouldering disappointment and sadness from the children who rarely see their dad in the evenings and on weekends, and feeling personal resentment for all of the date nights we don’t get, the trips we don’t take, or the conversations we don’t have out of pure lack of time to be together. It’s snapping at each other over wanting the other person to recognize how hard it is to (fill in the blank: manage an entire home project, work a full-time job and then work at night at the house, do bedtime with four children alone, manage all of the household tasks and chores alone, etc). We have had many difficult conversations, emotional outbursts, angry door slams, and times where we have said, “I wish we never would have taken this project on to begin with.” But, here we are. Together. And we are going to be OK.

**4. Penny wise, pound foolish is a thing.**

We set out at the beginning of this project thinking we would be the ultimate thrifters — we could find things at bargain prices, utilizing closeout sales, overstock companies, and flea markets. That sounded like a great way to save money and add character to our house. However, we learned the hard way, many times, that sometimes saving some money up front meant having to ultimately spend more money in the end. I believe the phrase is “penny wise, pound foolish,” and I saw this come to life when we bought tile at a closeout store in Kentucky. We spent an entire day driving to this store, only to find that the warehouse was unexpectedly closed. Somehow, we begged someone to let us in. We had about an hour to make a decision on floor tile for several bathrooms in our house. We chose something that we thought was a good deal and went on our way. Even though the tile was a good price, we discovered when it was time to lay the tile that a large majority of it was damaged and could not be used. We ended up having to buy new tile for our master bathroom. I haven’t done the math (because I don’t want to know) on how much money was wasted on the damaged tile. Sometimes, it is better to just buy items from a store or specialized company so that you know you are getting a good product AND you have recourse if the product is damaged. Buying from a closeout place is tempting because of the prices, but if you have damage or any issues, they will be of no help to you.

We purchased our stove and fridge from an appliance store in town that was closing. We got the items at a great price, and they are very nice appliances, but we have no recourse if the items do not work. So far, so good, but we had to order additional parts for our stove because we bought the floor model and a couple pieces were missing. What we thought would be $20 parts online ended up being a couple hundred dollars’ worth. In the end, we probably should have purchased from a store that was not going out of business, but the temptation to get something at 50% was too great for us to resist.

Let’s not forget that your time is very valuable — literally, it’s priceless. So on the day that we spent messing around with buying the tile at the closeout shop, we lost about 12 hours of time that we couldn’t get back. When I think about assigning a monetary value on our time, it makes the cost of that tile all the more expensive and therefore even more worthless when we couldn’t used the majority of it. Time is not free!

My husband initially did not make any allowances in our budget for paying painters or people to lay the tile. He figured these were jobs we could do ourselves to save money. We eventually decided to pay people to do these jobs (even though our painters left a lot to be desired and lot for us to touch up on our own) because we realized that the time we would spend doing these tasks would not only take away from the precious time we have with our children, but they also would pull my husband away from his job (which is loss of his vacation time) or prevent him from taking on moonlighting opportunities (that would cover the expense of paying a professional to take care of the jobs for us). Additionally, when you aren’t a professional, you typically have to buy a lot of extra tools and supplies that you don’t have just to get the job done, whereas a professional would have those already.

It all adds up. Tools, supplies, time, etc. Sometimes it simply isn’t worth it (financially, emotionally) to DIY everything.

5. Gratitude will make up the difference.

When I think back on the past 18 months of our lives, I sometimes struggle to find anything positive to say. The big, major setbacks we have experienced seem to stand out most prominently, and they tend to be the first things I think about. However, if I can move those roadblocks out of the way, I find so much to be thankful for. When we have been at our lowest, most anxious, most stressed out, most down-and-out levels, I have had to dig deep to find my gratitude.

First off, the opportunity to build a dream home is something to be thankful for. I honestly never thought we would have the chance.

Thank you.

We have worked with some really great, professional people, despite any who have let us down.

Thank you.

We have learned so much about ourselves as individuals and as a couple as a result of this process.

Thank you.

Thus far, this project has been the single, biggest stressor in our almost 11 year marriage — and in the grand scheme, that is pretty minor.

Thank you.

Our children will grow up surrounded by trees & dirt, a night sky filled with stars they can see clearly without ambient city light, and they will hear the birds and the wind and a coyote or two. They will have a memorable, happy life at their new home.