Welcome back! It’s the first Thursday of April so it’s time for a new Conversations post. This month, I’m talking about the house that we built. It’s been quite a journey!
When we first started this process, we thought selling our old house would take a while. We live out in the country and this little subdavision was the only one for miles. Again, it is out in the middle of Nowheresville. Well, the house sold in a few hours.
After closing and celebrating our mortgage-free life, we settled into our fancy new RV. And that was quite and adjustment, but not THAT bad of an adjustment. Stephen built a huge shop about 10 steps from the RV door. Inside that shop, we had a second toilet, a large sink, washer/dryer, regular sized fridge, and small crib room to hold my claw foot tub and his bed for night shift when he must have silence and darkness to get some zzzzs.
Then it was time to start construction. This technically a pole-barn home. Steel trusses form the roof, walls complete the outside, concrete foundation, and Stephen framed the inside and formed rooms.
Once the framing was finished, it was time for electrical. That took a few days because Stephen did the wiring on his off days from his regular job. Talk about exhausting! He was machine during those months.
After wiring, then came drywall, paint, trim, flooring, cabinets, appliances. That took about 4 months to get it all finished. We also had a long front porch and back porch to finish. The loft area is for storage for now. The large vaulted area is white plank board. This is our living, kitchen, dining area. I LOVE this open plan.
We built this fireplace. It was a great experience but I hope we did such a good job that we will never have to do it again.
One view of the dream kitchen he built for me. Granite for days and space to move and cook and laugh and live.
We moved in November and I started with Christmas decorating. It was honestly one of the happiest times of our lives. We had made it! The house that we (Stephen) built.
It seemed the world was smiling with us when we got a very RARE early December snow to make our Christmas card picture. In all my years living and loving Tuscaloosa, this one has been the most challenging. We were living in an RV. We lost Frankie 2 weeks before we moved in. We spent 2 years living out of boxes. The end of the year, however was the most rewarding.
If you’ve been reading (or checking for new posts, getting tired of checking, giving up on me, and now back for updates) thanks for hanging in there. It’s been a wild ride and I wouldn’t change a minute of it.
