I made a blog post last week about our upcoming move, and to say that we’re excited is an extreme understatement. But to be honest, I originally wrote that post back in July right after we signed the contract, but then decided for some reason or another not to post it. I found it the other day, and realized that if I’d shared that post, folks might have a better understanding of why I haven’t really been around much lately. 

I have to say that this has been one of the more stressful periods in my life. Not only are we having a house built, but I changed jobs in July. Still, for the most part, I have enjoyed the last few months. We’ve been going through the house, cleaning it up and cleaning out. It’s shocking, frankly, how much crap a couple can accumulate when they live somewhere for 10 years! The house we rent originally started out as a “temporary” home for two or three years, until our son graduated from high school. Then we took a while to find something we both really liked, and just as we were getting ready to sign a contract on a new build in 2015, I found out I was being laid off from my job in 1Q2016. I couldn’t find another job, so I started my own business, which I then had to close after Hurricane Harvey came through in August 2017. It’s taken us this long to get to a point where we are ready, and comfortable enough, to consider buying a house again. 

When we first started talking about buying a house, our plan was to buy an existing home, preferably something with large trees and a sense of age. We quickly found out that in the current market, that just was not possible. We watched our daughter and her family navigate the market last year, and saw them lose a couple of houses to people who had a lot of cash to put down, or who were able to buy the house outright, requiring no financing. We had no chance of competing with that, so we turned to new homes. 

Buying a new home now is not like it has been in the past. When I built a new home in 2007, I was able to choose the lot and the finishes, and of course, the house. This time, when we would visit new neighborhoods, the reps would tell us which houses were slated to be built that had not already been purchased, and the location and finishes were already determined. Every one of them told us that the reason for this was that there are construction material shortages, and they were sourcing the materials prior to committing to them.

For the most part, we’d had very few issues with this. For one, if we were purchasing an existing home, it’s unlikely we would love all of the finishes in the house, so that didn’t bother us too much. Second, with one very large, glaring exception, we have had no issues getting materials. The exception has been our brick. We had to change the brick once, and then the replacement brick didn’t show up until three weeks past the time it was supposed to be delivered. But it’s onsite now and hopefully the house is being bricked as I write this. The lack of brick didn’t slow down our builder, however. They continued to work on the inside of the house, and now that the brick is here, we should be able to close by our original mid-November date. 

I will say that I had a couple of sleepless weeks, though, when we couldn’t get brick, and no one seemed to be able to find out why. We are, as I said before, renting the house where we live now, and we’ve already given notice for the end of November. Our landlords have been totally awesome for the entire time we’ve been here, and we had a 60 day notification notice, but we did tell them as soon as we signed the contract in July. I’m certain that if we needed to stay longer, we could, because they are selling the house once we leave and there’s no risk to another tenant. But the reality is, our house is almost completely packed up, and living in a pile of boxes is definitely stressful. 

To add to my stress, my studio is almost completely packed up and I have very little ability to exercise my mind creatively. I purchased a new sewing machine in July and I have used to only to make masks since I opened it up!

But the end is in sight. My builder’s rep told me that she should have final walk through and close dates for us tomorrow (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKK!!). Once we close, we both hope to take a few days off from work so we can get moved and more or less unpacked in the new space. My hope is to be at “normal” by mid-December.

No matter what, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity. We honestly could not be more excited or more grateful for our new home, and I can’t wait to share the move in and setting up of my new studio with you. 😊