I met a long time All Things Thrifty follower over the weekend. Lisa is from the Bay area in California. It was so fun to chat, and discuss the projects she has tackled so far, and I absolutely loved talking to her. She talked about our headboard projects, our mismatched chairs, and even our molding project in our entryway.
During our chat, Lisa said something that hit home. She noticed that I haven’t been posting as often lately. She said that it seemed like I was “taking a break.” I thought about it for a minute and I knew that I needed to explain to her and to YOU why this year looked different here on the All Things Thrifty blog.
It’s not like I have been sitting on the couch eating bon bons this year. HAHA! The thought of that sounds heavenly. But, I promise I’m not disappearing. In fact, I have shared more on my All Things Thrifty Facebook and Instagram this year than ever! But, I don’t think Lisa has social media, so she hasn’t rubbed shoulders with me over there.
But the biggest thing is that we are thinking about building a HOUSE! Woah. Saying it out loud is kinda surreal. We haven’t had anything pan out yet, and I wasn’t sure when to announce it! But, we have inquired about two different lot options {both in our same neighborhood}, and we are really excited about things, and because of that, we haven’t done as much on our home lately as usual. Since 2009, we have steadily changed almost everything we possibly could about this house! We landscaped the backyard, installed wood floors, painted over the beige, remodeled three bathrooms, and ripped out every speck of carpet that it had, ripped out loads and loads of tile, and every bedroom has gotten several facelifts <—-and that’s just a smidgen of the projects.
It’s kind of weird to say that we are “done” with our projects on this house. We have changed almost everything humanly possible, and I have lost a little motivation to keep putting money into a house that could be for sale any day now!
But honestly, building a house hasn’t been the only thing.
Lisa is right. This year has been different. It has been a year of MOM. MOM. MOM. And I might even go as far to say that this year kicked my Mom butt. I underestimated what this year was going to look like, and it was intense. I had four kids on four different schedules. Connelly left at 7:15 am, Oaks left at 7:40, Londyn left at 8:40 and Creed has afternoon kindergarten, so he left at 12:40. As much as I wish that I could be superwoman all the time, it was a bit of a crazy year. By the time Creed left for school, Connelly would soon be home an hour and a half later. I would shower, and run to the grocery store quickly, and then BAM…it time for my Mom A-game again. I’m not complaining. It’s just the way this year was.
I honestly feel like the things that make me who I am is what All Things Thrifty is all about. I have written more posts about “family” and “my faith” this year than ever. And you can always count on me to post about things that are relative to my life that I feel would be good to share. I love to share “lessons learned” that may help you!
I suspect there are more of you in the same boat as Lisa, and you’ve been wondering where the heck I’ve been. Thank you for being patient with this human “crazy lady” over here. I’m breathing into a bag in the corner trying to figure out if it’s the right time to dump every penny we have into a new home.
Advice? Lay it on me.
xoxo,
Brooke
Hi, we are also thinking of building. Plans close to being done. Where is your progress currently?
We recently built a new home, and it was a completely different experience than we had many years ago when we had a home built, all because of the builder. This time around, our builder couldn’t have cared less about us once the contract was signed. He was rarely on site, and wouldn’t communicate with us, but kept doing things wrong (cheaply) instead of the way we had asked. He would randomly send invoices for overages that we thought were included in the price (things we had talked about before signing the contract). He really didn’t want to build a custom home because he didn’t want to deal with a customer. In short, it was a nightmare. The builder that we had years ago was always on site, and truly cared that we have a quality home. He welcomed our input. My advice is to get lots of references for builders, check out the homes they have built, and make sure that everything you expect is in the contract.
Also, be aware that a new home will probably cost way more than you anticipate, and building it will be way more of a headache than you think. Also, you will constantly think of things that you wish you had done differently (or you wish the builder had done differently). Having said that, we are glad that we did build because we wanted to downsize and had specific thoughts about how we could make a smaller home work smart. Also, we really wanted a front porch and back screened porch, and we couldn’t have feasibly added those to our old house. The other important thing to us was a flat backyard, which we didn’t have before. When we found a lakefront lot, which we’ve always wanted, we knew it was time to bite the bullet. Still, there were many times that I wish we had never gotten started. All that to say, if you have really good reasons to move/build, go for it! Just be aware that it probably won’t be a picnic. I don’t mean to be a downer, just realistic. I will pray for you!