Exterior Colors

After a lot of deliberation, Natalie picked out some of the exterior features of the house. The colors aren't quite perfect on the computer, but they are close and will give you an idea of the color scheme.

House Plot Layout

After deciding which floorplan we wanted, we met with Guy (our onsite foreman/contractor) to decide where we wanted the house placed on the property. We had to follow a few codes like having the house back 25' from the sidewalk, etc. This is what we came up with.

Floorplan

The toughest decision we have had so far was choosing which layout we liked the best. We finally chose the Aspen.

Lot Choice

In the self help program, home building choices are done in the order in which each family was accepted into the program. We were the 2nd family accepted into the program, so we had 2nd choice for our lot. We chose Lot #5, which is directly west of the Blazzard's and just north of Natalie's parents' land.

The top picture shows a satellite view of our lot and shows where we are in relation to Rod and Connie's land and where we live now.

The bottom picture shows a ground level view of our lot. Unfortunately we didn't think to take a picture until after all of the weeds started coming up. The view is to the SE.

The beginning

We decided to create a blog of our home building experience so that friends and family can see what's happening. It will also be cool to be able to look back at the process when we are finished.

We are building a home through USDA Rural Development. It is a self help program to help bring families into rural areas and to also help facilitate home ownership to low income families. We applied in July of 2008 and were accepted into the program this last winter.

As of now, there are 4 other families in the program with us, but there will eventually be 8 in total. Each family is required to put in 30 hours each week building the houses. We help each other building the homes and no one can move into their homes until all of the homes are finished.

We were hoping to start building in May or June, but it looks as though we won't begin construction until August.