3 Years and 92 days later – Our Rebuild Begins

The road continues to wind! Shortly after I last posted here (over a year ago!), Nick and I changed our minds. We left our annual gathering with fire neighbors in our street, looked at each other, and said “Uh…I kind of want to rebuild a house here. Don’t you?”

So here we are. Over a year since we made the decision to rebuild a house on our lot from the fire, WE HAVE STARTED DIGGING A HOLE!!!!

We missed our old location (very central!), and felt drawn to the community we’ve been bonding with for years now. And, the opportunity to design/build a house *exactly* the way you’d want it to look is pretty cool.

So in Feb 2024, we got started. We open-enrolled Avery into the school near the rebuild (instead of our current home) so that when we move in eventually, we won’t also have to do a school switch at that time. Avery has had an AWESOME year so far with the school change, and was pretty unfazed by the transition.

Over the past year, we’ve made countless decisions on the house. Which builder to work with, choosing floor plans, making modifications, selecting materials, committing to energy efficiency, establishing a reasonable budget, picking each finish, finding a lender — all of it. We’ve picked everything down to door hinges and drywall texture already (who knew there were so many options?!).

The build-planning process was SO LONG. Much longer than we expected it would be. We were originally told it would take about 5 months to get things going. It took 13. Neighbors kept wondering if we’d changed our minds, since nothing was happening for so long.

Because we paid off our mortgage with our insurance pay-out, we had to get a construction loan for the build. That process added a bit more time to the process, but only an additional 4-6 weeks. The main time was spent waiting for our builder to move to the next steps in the planning process: architects, structural, permitting, design, purchasing, etc. – turns out a lot goes into building a house.

Our builder anticipates 7-9 months until we’re complete, so we hope that this time next year we’ll be settled into our new home.

Our neighbors have been amazingly supportive of our “late” rebuild, and we’re excited to be living near many of them again soon. And we can’t wait to ride our bikes to the Rec Center, head downtown for ice cream, and enjoy our old neighborhood once again (with many more friends than we had before!).

Now that we’re “back” into our neighborhood in spirit, I’ll plan to update here a bit on the progress on the house as we continue. Thanks for continuing to be on this ride with us!! ❤️