After our contract was accepted on the property, the search was on for the perfect house plan! This was another exciting step for Jennifer, who watches too much HGTV and has too many opinions on house design. We have some sweet friends who live down the street from our property and they had given us a great realtor recommendation (shoutout to John Alumbaugh (https://www.jerryalumbaugh.com ) and he, in turn, gave us the recommendation of a great builder, Tradewinds Builders (https://www.tradewindspensacola.com) owned by Wes M. We met Wes for the first time at our property the week we put in our offer. He walked the land over with us, answering all our questions, and appreciating all the beautiful trees as well as the coastline with us.
We knew the challenges it would be be to find a house plan to fit all our needs and wants. It needed to sleep all our family when we got together, so at least 18, 10+ of them being kids. And I also knew that we NEVER had enough bathrooms when we found a rental. 🤪 Our lot was narrow and deep, like many lots on water are, so we had to look at narrow lot plans and we knew we'd likely have to build on pilings (the big stilts under the house) to avoid sky-high flood and hurricane insurance. There's not much out there for 6 bedroom, 6 bath, narrow house plans on pilings that would also take full advantage of the gorgeous water view out back. 🤷🏻♀️ So, we bit the bullet and decided we had to design our own if we truly wanted to do this thing right. Boy, was that a LOT more than we had bargained for. I guess we knew the costs would increase, and even though we had a good architect to help us along, I now know why custom-designed houses cost more to build and buy. Insert crazy-Covid supply chain issues and we decided we might need to sit on the property a little while and wait for the costs of lumber to decrease before we started to build.
So we took most 2021 to get our design just right and Jennifer exhausted the patience of the poor design team until we finally had our blueprints in hand. We had gotten so many of the things that we LOVED. SIXTEEN HUNDRED square feet of porches with doors from the adult bedrooms (fave design feature). 😍 An open great room design with space for a pool table (my father-in-law insisted 😉) and 10 feet ceilings. And natural light steaming through as many windows as my engineer would allow. (Turns out walls are important to hold up the roof.) A fun bunk room designed for the older and younger cousins to have some separate spaces. TWO fridges, and TWO washers and dryers. AND AN ELEVATOR for handicap access and for grandparents with aging knees! 🙌 WOW, how blessed we were to have been able to include all these dreams of ours into this home.
So, if you're looking to design your own home, a few tips....
It's going to cost more than you think to design it. Ask direct questions about the costs upfront so that you aren't in sticker shock half way through.
Pick an architect that allows unlimited design changes up to the point of submitting it to an engineer. Maybe it was because our house was on pilings, but that was super important to making sure all my design wishes were held in check and balanced with practicality. We had to change some major things on the advice of our engineer to avoid having to order extra custom windows, etc. Our engineer was the best.
Look at A LOT of house plans to pick out the features that are on your have-to-have, would be nice to have, and dream lists.
Pay attention to sizes of doors and windows that the designer picks. Standard sizes cost less and are quicker to obtain.
Never pay the entire design fee upfront. We didn't do this, but we did have to pay in installments after certain design stages and we did regret making the last payment before we had the final design in hand. Sorry to say the communication fell off dramatically after we made the last payment and it took way too long to get the final design (months). While I'm very happy with the finished product, I'm hesitant to recommend the architectural firm just based on the last few months of our experience getting the final product completed.
This process all started in July of 2020, and while Covid had impacted so many of our lives, it made many of us realize that time spent with family was precious. Our kids were getting older and we felt we needed to seize the opportunity and start building in 2022 even though building costs were still... UGH. 🫣
So, next up... Building the Haven, Part 1.
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