Welcome to our blog! Mike wanted 1 place for all of our stories and photos to live throughout this process of building a home. Both for us (he just called it digital scrapbooking - ha!) and to share with our friends and family back in Ohio. So welcome! We will share here as we learn about the home building process and share many photos of the progress along the way.
Let's get you caught up to today when we got to see our driveway prepared!
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July -September 2017
When we first started looking for houses, Mike thought he found his dream house and our realtor was pushing us to make an offer if we were interested. The right amount of square footage, a loft, over 5 acres, set back from the road - all things we really wanted in a home. It even had a pool. We wanted to think on it overnight and as we were leaving the driveway we tried to google directions home. Neither of us had any cell phone reception. With Liz working from home, this was concerning. We called our realtor and found out the homeowners used a hot spot for their internet. We spent the next week trying to search for viable internet solution and there just isn't one out there for this property - without having a low data cap, very slow connection, or paying more than double the average monthly cost. Saying we were bummed was an understatement.
The next few weeks were filled with lots of Zillow and Realtor searching, setting up to see a few other homes in person - in case they just missed photographing the wow factor for the listing online - and lots of disappointment. We spoke with our realtor again, expressing this frustration and brought up the option of building and if she would have any recommendations for a builder in Dayton Tennessee. Here's why:
Dayton Tennessee is a small town with most modern conveniences and a small community feel. It sits in the middle of some large mountains that capture the essence of the Smoky Mountain area quite well. Even though we are 100 miles west of the true mountain park. Most mornings you'll find a dense fog looming throughout the mountains in the distance. Seeing as Mike's job also resides in Dayton, it seemed like a good fit to build a home.
The challenges of finding the right home within or near Dayton, with the lack of zoning restrictions, and low median per capita income, proved difficult. We were blown away by the amount of shittiest-houses-you've-ever-seen, right next door to 450k+ properties. Even if you found the perfect property, there was a good chance you could be next to a real dump. For example, one property in a nice area appeared to have a washer and dryer collection consuming their front yard. Don't be surprised if traffic moves slower than normal, possibly because they are avoiding the stray chickens and cats roaming the streets. Coming from large cities in Ohio, we also didn't realize things like cell phone reception and internet availability were often not available in the rural areas we were looking. It is tricky to find the right property to say the least.
We spoke with one gentlemen who was very nice but had lots of things going on personally and wouldn't be able to start on our project for a number of months - estimated into January 2018 at the time. We went back to the realtor for a second recommendation and met with our builder.
Our builder has lived and worked in Dayton his whole life, and knows every one... literally every one. We talked houses we liked, and floor plans that had the features we were looking for. When we brought up land, there were some places we had in mind from our Zillow searching, but he had a recommendation.
He had recently bought 40 acres that lies in a cove on the west side of Dayton behind what is known as Lone Mountain. He took us out there just at sunset to gauge our interest. Initially it was not exactly what Mike was looking for. He wanted mostly wooded property with privacy. He wanted to be able to look in all directions and see no signs of civilization. He also didn't want to mow more than the 2 acres he did at our last home. However Liz was in love. The views, that we didn't know we wanted, were beautiful. We thought beautiful views only were available from high in the mountains, and not nestled between the base of them. Boy were we wrong.
The property was 80% cleared land, overgrown, and much larger than we thought we could afford. We asked the price per acre and were met with sticker shock. Our builder said to stop back the following week once the property was mowed for the season. We also discussed where the house would set to gain the best view. We talked about how the property would be broken up and what amount of land we could afford. The problem is, the property is T-shaped and we wanted the very middle which land-locked some areas and would require our driveway to pass through a different parcel.
October - November 2017
We continued our house hunt for about another month hoping something out there would spark our interest. But nothing even came close to the idea of building exactly what we wanted on this beautiful property. So we went back to the builder and asked if there was a way to save some money on the build to afford more land. The additional land began to appeal to Mike more-so as fall came and leaves fell. He noticed that there are no leaves to rake, the open land really grants the good view, and the house will look great from the road with wonderful curb appeal. All things we felt our last house was lacking and were exciting prospects to have this time around. Plus we were told that if we let most of the land grow, there are people who will come cut it twice a year if they get to keep the hay.
Long story short: With lots of back and forth between us and the builder, different loan options, floor plan changes, and general snail's pace of the south, we finally signed our intent to proceed with the bank Friday December 1st.
Now that you are caught up with where we are today the fun part begins. We have lots of photos of the land to share and a few decisions we have already made with the build.
So we think this is a good place to stop for now and will share all about the property on the next post!
Toodles!
Liz and Mike
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