My five month vacation is over!

We did it friends. Almost 2 years after signing our P&S agreement in 2013, as of April 23rd, we are finally living in the house that crazy built. Here I am, sitting as I do every day on my kitchen counter after sweating my ass off at the gym, just like in my inspiration photo that started it all (see previous post). You can't even tell the difference between the two photos right? 

Life is good. The insanity of the actual house build is behind us (of course there are still lingering punch list items) and we have moved onto the next phase of our lives. I am working on some design projects around the house (many posts to come about that in the near future) and still taking lots of photos on a daily basis. 

Although there were times over these past two years that my husband and I almost backed out of this project, and wanted to strangle a few individuals, I enjoyed the process over all. It is amazing to see all your hard work and ideas that you spent countless hours deciding on come to life. We are truly blessed to have been able to take this journey, and are now lucky enough to be living in one awesome abode. 

My advice to those thinking about starting a new house build (well the main takeaway from this ordeal) is to have as many people on your "side" as you possibly can. I went into this project (and ended it) pretty much being responsible for all of the design and day-to-day decisions. Hubs was a total rockstar when it came to all of the financial and scheduling issues - damn does it help to have a lawyer sleeping in your bed at night. 

But what I regret is that we did not spend the extra money to have someone as a buyers representative. I do not have a background in construction or real estate development, obviously, nor do I have much experience in design, so I really didn't know what was the right decision when it came to many things. Sure I knew what I liked, but would what I liked work? Would this paint color work in a room with this amount of light? What kind of countertop is right for our lifestyle? Is it worth it to spend extra money on top of the line appliances? Where should we save money and where should we splurge? Should that light be on a dimmer or no? What height do I want this light fixture? Do I want a one or a two piece toilet? 

These all seem like silly questions, but they were all things I was struggling to decide, on my own, and WTF did I know? I think I made the right decision about these things, but who knows. It would have been amazing to have someone with experience helping me make these decisions, as well as someone to be our representative when it came to scheduling and quality control. What I mean is that it would have nice to have an extra set of eyes, someone working for me, come through the house to double check that things were done correctly. Not saying that they weren't done correctly in the end, but it was all so rushed the last two weeks before we closed, and it was me checking to make sure it was all done to my liking. Let's just say that thankfully the house is under warranty for one year, and that I have my contractors on speed dial. 

Now that house stuff has settled down, and summer is upon us, I plan to be back in blogging action, and have lots of fun stuff to share with you all...hopefully there are still some people out there following me!! Bueller? Bueller???

and now for some real gems...