Our Home Building Journey – Land

I have thought about it a lot over the last few months, and finally decided to share some of our home building journey here on the blog for a few reasons – 1) This is A HUGE part of our lives right now,  2) There is a lot of “design” involved in the home building process and even though it is a different type of design…I find artistic inspiration in everything from fashion blogs to home decor, so I thought you all may do the same, and 3) I have loved finding every bit of information I could on building, and I thought that I may learn a few things along the way that could be useful to others getting ready to build a home!!

I decided to start at the beginning and share our process and what we have discovered along the way! Today I am posting about finding your ideal piece of property, but as we are in the process of beginning to build, the posts coming up will be mostly about floorplans, design ideas, and inspiration! I also will post regular updates on Instagram if you would like to follow along as we choose granite, watch the plumbing go in, and more!

We bought our land almost a year ago, which was the first part of the learning process about building a custom home. When shopping for land to build a house on, there are many things to consider. First, the perfect piece of land for us, may be drastically different than the perfect piece of land for you… There isn’t any specific type of land that is perfect…only what’s perfect for your family and home. That said, there are basic things to consider when looking for land.

1) Location. Location. Location. Location is so important to your loving your new home (and to be honest, you certainly don’t want to go through the struggles of building a dream home and wish it was located elsewhere)! We chose location based on a) the area of town we wanted to be in b) proximity to my husbands work c) great public schools in the area AND d) a location that gave us a slightly “rural” feel while still being close enough to enjoy the shops, restaurants, and beaches our city offers.

2) Neighborhood or Country Life. We loved both options here…and we looked at both options as well. We knew we wanted a large back yard and loved the idea of looking over natural landscape, and we also like the idea of being in a neighborhood setting. We ended up finding a piece of land that provided us both…a large lot on a cul-de-sac that backs up to a preserve, and is in a country neighborhood.

3) $$$ Truth is that for most of us, budget (and staying on budget) IS HUGE! Budget has and will continue to dictate many of our building decisions. We loved the idea of a few acres to spread out on, but the cost that came with that would mean waiting quite a few more years before we could build. For many people the benefits of owning a large piece of far outweigh the costs. In our situation, staying on budget with the land meant being able to build sooner.

4) Make a list of priorities and stick to it. Just like building, it’s easy to get caught up in the details and love things that may not work for you (like that 10 rolling acres in an equestrian neighborhood that we LOVED…only it didn’t fit our priority list for location and it was WAY over budget). Like I said before, our priorities were to find a place that would give us a big backyard, back up to natural landscape (nature preserve, water, etc.), and in a location close to my husbands work. There are a million other things that would be “added bonuses” (more land, cul-de-sac street, land that is already built up so you don’t need as much dirt brought in, etc) but when we found land in our budget, in the right location, and it fit our BASE priorities….we knew it was the one!

Purchasing land was the first of many times that I realized my “ideal” home/land and what was the perfect home/land for us were different! My “dream house” has evolved during this past year quite a few times.

I hope you will enjoy the posts following along on our home building journey!