Our Home

Just before Christmas 2020, we moved into our new house! It has been such a whirlwind. Back in 2019, we started talking about doing an addition on our house, but after exploring our options, we realized the unconventional option to rebuild on our same lake lot was the better investment for us.

At the start of 2020, we finalized our house design and picked out most of our selections for the house (like appliances, cabinets, trim, doors, countertops, etc...). We were gearing up to start construction in the spring, with the intent to be in the house by late summer. However, when the COVID pandemic hit the United States in late winter, and we really weren't sure what that would mean for our jobs, so we decided to pause the construction until we had more answers.

Just before summer started, we made the call that despite everything going on around us, our jobs seemed to be steady. Through the pandemic, we learned that you can't take anything for granted, so we decided to stop pushing pause on our lives and to go after our dream of building the new house. We got the ball rolling to start a few months later.

Over July 4, 2020, we moved out of our lake house so an investor could move the current house off the property. Doing it this way felt better since the bones of the house were still in good shape, and it saved us a decent amount of money in teardown costs. Clean-up from the moving the house off started the last week of July and the footings were pored the first week of August, followed by the foundation walls. Framers took over the beginning of September and completed all their work in 10 days! Roof was put on by late September. We ran into a slight delay in our windows due to COVID restrictions at the window manufacture, so they were put in early October. Now that the house was sealed, the interior work could start.

It was starting to get cold in Minnesota, even with some early snowfall. Our electric company was being a bit of pain throughout the process and giving our builder the runaround to get electric hooked up to the house. We were at the point were we needed to have electric to run the furnace fan to heat the house so the drywall and painting could start. We are so grateful for our wonderful neighbor to help us out with some electricity to prevent our build from being at a complete standstill. Our HVAC ductwork, electric, and sheetrock were done in October.

Additionally in October, our septic went in; which we ran into a little hiccup with during installation. Originally our septic was meant to go on the side of the house, but after the house was up, it was a little bit too tight of a space to fit, so it had to be moved to just behind our house. This resulted in some extra costs due to having to bring in over 400 tons of dirt and adjust our originally landscape plans. In the end though, it was a blessing because we were able to get a flat spot in our backyard.

November completed the hard floor surfaces, cabinets, trim work, paint, stain, landscaping, and siding.

In early December, our carpet, electric, plumbing, and final HVAC completed. We were also able to get a glimpse of what most of the house would look like with all the selections we picked out almost a year ago. At this point, we realized that our main flooring choice in the house did not work with the stain color we picked. We began to scramble on what to do since we were supposed to be moving in soon. Thankfully, the painter was able to squeeze us in so it only delayed moving in by a few days.

From when we moved out to when we moved in, it was a total of 168 days (or 24 weeks). The last two weeks have been jam packed with trying to get all the normal Christmas traditions done with the kids, unpacking, and just getting settled into the new house. Even with a few bumps along the way, it all turned out beautiful in the end.

We are so happy to be home.