House Update: Plans, Ground Breaking & Framing

So much has happened over the past few months! For those new to following along, James and I recently purchased land that we’re building our first and forever home on. We purchased what used to be farmland – so it only seemed fitting that we build a farmhouse. We worked with an architect to design our dream home from the ground up and it’s been an incredible journey seeing the designs we drafted come to life.  I’m so proud of what we’ve done!

Thanks to a somewhat mild winter, we were able to break ground and get our entire house framed, windows installed and roof completed!  One of the coolest experiences we had was walking through our home once it was framed. It was so exciting to walk through the doors, hallways and rooms of what was once only a vision in our head and lines on a piece of paper.

Designing the layout of our home was such a fun process. We went to our architect with ideas sketched on a piece of paper and then worked for months ironing out every last detail. Our entire house was built around the views we have in our backyard. Our building lot is perched up high, overlooking hills to the west with beautiful sunset views. We placed the important rooms (great room, dining room, master suite and outdoor living room) toward the back of our home. Each room is designed with large windows to take full advantage of the beautiful scenery. We designed our house with entertaining in mind. We both love to host our friends and family and worked thoughtfully to design a home that was suited for parties, holidays and get togethers.  As far as decor goes, the look we’re going for is Modern meets Traditional New England farmhouse.

Everyone warned us that building a home would be difficult, but I never anticipated exactly HOW difficult. Unlike purchasing a new construction spec house from a developer, we are building this all on our own (my husband is a developer/builder.) The amount of decisions we need to make is baffling and the time given to make them is limited. Knowing that this house will be our forever home definitely adds to the stress factor! One thing I learned quickly is that knowing what you want your home to look like is not enough – you need to be prepared to choose every little detail with so many options to choose from. Full disclosure – there’s no doubt I’m making every decision more difficult than it needs to be. Why? Because I’m a perfectionist and I because I LOVE THIS STUFF! Designing and building a home is quite literally a dream come true for me. As much as I complain about the stress that goes along with it, I feel so lucky for the opportunity to do this. It will all be worth it in the end!

It’s been important for me to document this process and take as many photos as possible along the way. Here are a few we took last month during one of our many visits to the house. Next up: exterior finishes and dry wall! Things are moving very quickly now, so stayed tuned for another post coming soon! If you have any questions about the building process, leave them in the comments below! For more frequent house updates, be sure to follow me on Instagram! I often post video walk-throughs on my stories 😉