This is the true story of two married people, picked to build a house, work together and have their lives written on a blog, to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start being real…
Or this is just where we answer your burning questions in a less dramatic way then reality according to MTV. Either way prepare to have your world rocked.
Katie (my favorite reader…if I played favorites – I love you all equally like any good mother) had this incredible question up her sleeve:
All your recent great work has led me to a question. Because you’ve built from the ground up, what did your timing, choice, and sourcing process look like? Did you have to methodically go room by room, or focus on material (all tile, all countertops, etc.) and then go from there? As someone who agonizes for months over drawer pulls, how did you handle all of that?
So. Much. Goodness. Also this post was completely cowritten by us, so you get both the husband and the wife’s view of the process.
As far as approach, whether or not we went room by room or focused on materials… the answer is both.
Basically we went room by room ahead of time and planned out the overall feel before we started meeting with the subcontractors (cabinets, counters, etc). Some of our vision was easier to pull off than others. The island marble (white, gray veining with a waterfall) was our plan from the moment we put pen to paper with our architect. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easily executed.
However since you’re dealing with subcontractors for each specific thing (i.e. flooring, plumbing, cabinets, etc.), all meetings and final decisions are made based on a specific materials. We found the process to go smoother when we considered the whole room then broke it down by materials. It made the details in the meetings less daunting and the communication clearer between us and the subcontractors…not that they always listened to us 100%.
This is why the master bath countertop being gray was so disappointing because all the other design decisions had been made (flooring and cabinet color) and executed before the countertop arrived more on the gray side. It changed the feel and our vision of that space. That’s kinda the downside of having such a strong opinion about how a space should come together. Still worth it though.
Our sourcing was a combination of budget considerations along with achieving the look we wanted. This is where building a complete custom house is awesome because you are limitless with option. No one tells you no (think kid in a candy store scenario). Light fixtures were big for us. We met with a consultant from a lighting supply store early on, and we weren’t super happy with the selection (or pricing) and ended up sourcing a lot of the fixtures ourselves (like the killer vintage pendants above the island). We also got some crazy looks for busting out an ikea fixture. We’re not brand whores and don’t think that just because something is cheap it won’t look good, so it didn’t bother us.
How we planned: it was a constant conversation on text, facebook and pinterest. So many times Nick would be in the other room (or at work) and see something he really liked (a light fixture for example) and message Amber a link on facebook. We used secret boards on pinterest to have conversations with each other and post tons of options for a specific thing (I think at one point there were 30 options in a row posted for our master vanity light).
Lastly, some decisions you make or change mid-stream as the room evolves. When they framed out our bathroom, the idea of a generic tub just didn’t set well with us. The more we went up there the more we realized that we wanted to do something different. They had already framed out for a jet tub when we had them yank out the framing and cut into the foundation to plumb for the clawfoot tub.
Was it overwhelming? We don’t think so. Well sometimes. Did we get all the choices right? Don’t think so either. There’s not a ton we would change, but there’s definitely things like the fireplace and the exterior color scheme that we would do differently in retrospect.
We were able to make decisions very quickly. Even though Amber is usually the one antagonizing every choice, there’s nothing like living with your parents to help speed up the process. Kidding (kinda).
The key is to think of the space as a whole, then break it down by the materials. Allow yourself to adjust as you see things coming together. Research the heck out of every decision to make sure you are getting exactly what you want for as cheap as you can.
communication is key in every aspect of marriage! my husband and i have very different patterns of communication…..
I’ve only wanted to smack Nick a few times during the process, so that’s probably a win!
Thanks for these insights. Sometimes we feel so much pressure to get everything right the first time, and it’s frustrating to make a decision only to second-guess yourself after the fact. But that’s really what keeps life interesting. Things would be so boring if we figured everything out perfectly from the start!
You are absolutely correct! Plus things will change once we get stuff in there and start decorating.
The key really is living with parents. 7 months with the in-laws will make any decision seem like a piece of cake.
#truth
Love this post!
I’m glad my husband doesn’t really have any opinions when it comes to design! That’s also a win win! He only cares about it being as cheap as possible. Like I said he’d be happy in a trailer 😉
Haha well there’s a balance there too. You go for style at all costs, and he is in charge of making sure everything is on a budget! It all works!!
Wow, this makes me all happy you guys. You must have known that NC was just hit with a huge snowpocalypse and that I’m about to chew my hand off out of boredom. Even episodes of Friday Night Lights are no longer cutting it. You’ve made my day and provided some inspiration to get off my butt and wrap up some condo projects. (I actually looked into those Martha Stewart drawer pulls and may buy one to test on a drawer project. Uh, how do you feel about mixing metals?)
Thanks for answering my question so thoroughly and candidly. I still can’t wrap my mind around all you were able to accomplish. Keep it up!
PS: You are totally allowed to pick favorites.
We actually scrambled to get this post up in order to save your hand. Try binge watching Parenthood until House of Cards comes back tomorrow.
Go for mixing metals! We did brass with ORB/black fixtures in the bathroom. Then brass with the stainless in the kitchen. We also did navy with black, so there are no rules!!!
Thank you so much for asking and making us think through the whole process in case we are crazy enough to do it again!
I love this post and I love that you guys go back and forth via various social media sites. Ryan and I are more old school – I email hiim photos about 14 times a day for the barn. I can’t imagine all the emails he’ll have when we have more than 320 square feet to fill.
We used to do that when I worked! I would email things I’d find on Craigslist all day, every day. It got ridiculous. Pinterest was great for cataloging room and items, and Facebook chat was used for immediate, specific things that we needed more of a conversation to happen. Pinterest comments just don’t lend themselves to a chat quite the same way.
I’m so impressed with how not crazy you guys still sound so far into the process. I was just talking about this to Dave the other night. He was talking about a friend who’s building a house and how it sounds fun, and I was all, “oh, no. we are SO not cut out for that.” I cited your blog often to construct my argument. We’re way too wimpy about confrontation; our drawer pulls would stay centered wrong and drive us crazy for the rest of our lives (or, you know, until we finally fixed them ourselves months later).
Well I’m glad we have been able to mask how crazy we actually are and have been! Neither one of us is particularly confrontational either, but we’ve adapted the motto “well if we are paying for it…” Honestly I expect near perfection on projects that I do, so I don’t feel like it’s unreasonable to expect things to be done correctly from people who are professionals. Plus we have lots of projects already lined up, so we don’t want to have to go back and fix anyone’s errors along the way!
Nothing like a build or renovation to test a team. I love that you guys make all your decisions together!
Well that’s not entirely true. I let Nick make all our food decisions…where and what we are going to eat. Ha!
A couple that builds together, stays together. No? That’s not a saying? It totally should be. I think if you can get through building a home together, your marriage will be stronger for it. When we built our house, I think we only had one time where dh REALLY didn’t like what I had to say 😀 😀 😀 And now, 15 years later, I don’t even remember what it was about (probably my perfectionism)
I applaud you for getting this far with all the obstacles you have had. The end product, though, I have to say, is TOTALLY WORTH IT
Maybe building a house should be worked into pre martial counseling or something. I bet we would see a drastic drop in weddings. We’ve been on the same page pretty much the whole build which is incredible. That’s not to say we haven’t been extremely annoyed with one another either. There have definitely been times when we’ve both hit our frustration level. However like child birth and all things with wonderful endings, I can’t remember what all the fuss is about when you have such a great outcome.
You two lovebirds are so sweet together and your house will be gorgeous!!!
We are something! Let’s hope the house will be gorgeous after all we’ve done!
everyone always said to us: if you can build a house together your marriage can survive anything. So true. We only talked house building for 1.5 years and we had many fights in between, but it was so worth it. However, I don’t want to build another one anytime soon!
Haha I might be able to talk myself into doing it again…but I don’t know if I could handle the selling process. The first negative feedback from a potential buyer might send me over the edge.
Okay so I was just reading this post while sitting next to Andy on the couch, and I paused at the picture of your kitchen to tell him that if we could build a house, my kitchen would pretty much be exactly like yours. EXACTLY. And then we got into a hypothetical (lighthearted) argument about the waterfall countertops in our hypothetical house. I had to try to talk him into them even though this kitchen is all hypothetical, and we coudln’t come to an agreement. Soooo. Maybe the next post can be about how to read home blogs about building houses and have a happy marriage.
Haha well honestly at some point you both get a little beat down that you don’t want to argue. You just trust whatever the other one feels strongly about. I do think that you should write that post! It’d be much funnier from you and Andy!
I feel like I need to take a Xanex just from reading this post.
You deserve his and her’s gold medals for surviving the build. I suppose your glorious house is a gold medal.
The Wills rock.
Gold Medals for all!! You and Aaron could totally pull this off. You have lived in the midst of a serious reno, so it’s basically the same thing!
Such a great post! Can’t wait to fly down there someday (soonish) and see that baby in person.
Any time Jessica! We will have the guest room ready AND a room for the boys!