As some of you know, Garrett and I are BUILDING our first home! We are beyond grateful and very excited. This was something that was on our radar for 2012, and really didn't believe it would happen this fast. This is definitely all the Lord's doing, and it's awesome to see Him work so smoothly. I mean how many people look for a house in 2 weeks, and put money down that 2nd week. Well, that is exactly what happened.
Here is a timeline of how things went down:
Monday, March 19th- My aunt (Kelley) who works for DR Horton, told us we should think about a house. She explained that we would probably be more qualified than we thought we would be. We were curious so we started look online. Knowing we can only get a loan for the price of the house, and that renovations would not be possible due to our lack of funds, we were slowly ruling out buying a used home. We did continue to look online and do a few house drive-bys.
Thursday, March 29 we go to a DR Horton community. The lady thought we couldn't afford her community. Using their loan lady, we discovered we would qualify no problem for a loan, but we needed to possibly go with another builder.
Friday, March 30th- We were on our way to Beaumont, and Garrett gets a call from a lady from History Maker homes. She sends us their pricing and floor plans. We discovered we got more home for our money and a design closer to what we wanted with them.
Sunday, April 1st- We visit a History Maker community in an area we like, and we look at their models.
Monday, April 2nd- We go back to History Maker, and the lady shows us around & shows us 3 plots we can choose from. We didn't really like the area the plots were in and I was hoping to have a community pool. The lady told us about Fossil Creek at Waters Bend Community 5 minutes from the place we were at. This had a community pool, park, and was in the school district we really like, Northwest.
Thursday, April 5th- We go to the Fossil Creek at Waters Bend Community and meet Norm our History Maker contact. We choose a lot, do lots of paper work, and then visit our land for the first time.
Design center- This is the day the design center was open to the public. I wanted to gather my thoughts about everything, before we actually had our appointment on Wednesday. History Maker gave us $5,000 in the design center and anything we went over got rolled into the price of our house. We went and spent about an hour going over everything we wanted. Small things I never thought about we got to pick. Colors, shapes, sizes, etc. One can easily get overwhelmed, and Garrett helped me with that.
April - Design Center, visit 1- Here we told them exactly what we wanted. I'm sure it was the fastest the lady had ever done, Because I had my paper ready to go with everything marked. :)
April - Design center, visit 2 - Here we finalized the colors, placements of outlets, lights, switches, window placements, etc.
Now that our design center options were chosen, they could draw up our plans and then apply for permits. So a big portion of our waiting time, has been getting permits through the city of Fort Worth. They are very backed up and this process can take anywhere from 4-6 weeks.
June 9th- Garrett and I went to visit our land. They have cleared it, and got the pad ready. This means that any day now they should be ready for pour foundation.
Here is our anticipated time table from when everything is approved:
Foundation- 2 days
Framing- 3 days
From framing it will take them 45 good weather, business days to build our house. This puts us in our new house around the end of September or early October. Things definitely could change but we are feeling good about everything.
We look forward to having all of you come over and enjoy our new home this fall when we move in!
