When we originally moved into our home in Star back in the fall of 2017, we thought we would only be in the home for 3-5 years. We thought it would be a great started home for us here in Idaho. The way that the market went, it just made sense to stay where we were at, our home was big enough for the 4 of us and we loved our location and our yard. We finally got to the point where we felt that our kids needed a little more space. We tried for a while to find more land and to purchase it and sit on it for a few years and then build a home, but we couldn't find anywhere that would let us do that. We then eventually decided that we could either get more land or more house and we decided on more house, since our main reason for moving was to get a space for the kids to bring friends over. Last fall Craig found a lot that had a builder with a floor plan that we thought could work great for us. We were worried what the cost would be and what it would do to our monthly mortgage, but it really felt right for our family, so we started the process. We made some changes to the floor plan, extending the garage to be 6 car, extending the downstairs bonus room to create a larger gym, adding in the optional bonus room upstairs and not putting a wall between the 4th bedroom and bonus room to create a really big hangout room for the kids, making the ceilings 10 foot downstairs and a few other small things.
We broke ground in February and then sold our Star home in March, over spring break. They wanted a fast closing, so we moved out mid April and into Stan and Diane's. We finished out the school year out at their house which meant a ton of driving, I felt like a lived in the car. We closed on our new house on June 25th and started moving things in that evening. We were planning on moving slowly but after spending all day moving on Friday the 26th, we came back to Stan and Diane's to shower and go to bed early, but that was not in the plans. A freak storm rolled through and and it hailed and rained so hard that the basement flooded, like water was pouring through the basement door, even through the key hole. We spent the evening with the shop vac, sucking out as much water as possible until the disaster clean up crew got there. So we made the decision to move out and start sleeping in the new house on Saturday, which ended up being a very good decision because they had to rip up all the carpet and baseboards and move everything onto the dance floor. We had pretty much everything moved over by Saturday afternoon and with the help of family had all the beds set up, couch and fridge delivered and the house semi put together. We even had about 90% of the boxes unloaded and had the movers take the empty boxes with them.
Over the next month we continued to have so many things delivered and spent so much time putting things together. We put together chairs, desks, cabinets, tables, dressers, tv consoles, etc. We hired a handyman to hang all our ceiling fans and chandelier, he also put together the basketball hoop in the backyard and then he will be putting the rest of our gym equipment shortly. Stan helped us hang the 3 T.V.s including the 85 incher in the bonus room. We have ordered a pool/ping pong table that luckily someone else will be installing. We still have some little things like decorating the mantle and the dinning room buffet, but we are feeling settled.
The building experience went pretty smooth. There were definitely times that we didn't feel they communicated very well and our general contractor changed companies about two weeks before our closing, so that made things interesting. We have also had a few issues since moving in, but most of those have been taken care of. They were really good with staying on time and finished the build right when they planned, even with a little set back during drywalling. They had a scaffolding set up in the entry way, which is the only part of the house that extends both levels. Somehow the guy that was up taping the drywall way up high, fell off the scaffolding and hit his head on the way down. The scaffolding tore up the walls pretty good and there was a huge puddle of blood on the sub floor. I guess the guy passed out and they called an ambulance. Luckily after running tests, he was just fine, but they did have to come in a do an investigation so they had to such down the build for about a week. They replaced the subfloor and patched up the walls and got back on track very quickly, but a totally weird freak accident and we are so glad that he was ok.
The kids have adjusted really well, even though they miss being able to just step out the back doors to the pool at Stan and Diane's. Brooklyn is loving having her own bathroom, McKay loves his "chill" spot at the top of the stairs. I like that they kids can head up to the bonus room to watch movies and I am so excited for my gym to get finished. Craig loves the huge garage and all the storage, which he had all organized within 2 days of moving in. It definitely takes a lot longer to clean, but I think that is worth the trade off, I might be investing in a robot vacuum in the near future. We are so please with all the changes we made to the floor plan and think we will be very happy here for years to come. We were so luckily to have a place to stay and to store all of our stuff while we were in between homes. Moving twice wasn't particularly fun, but it was worth the stress relief of selling our house. Now here's to not moving for at least another decade!!
