The Frenches: Building Our New Home

**I started writing this post back in May and never got around to finishing it! I guess I'll post this and write an update afterwards!**

Jason and I had nonchalantly been looking at homes for sell for over six months. Our idea is we would likely move in 2-4 years, but if a home came up for sell that met ALL of our requirements, then we'd look into it. We were mainly looking in Bridgeland still because we do love it here.

Easter weekend Jason asked me if I would like to move to Fairfield. A house had come available that meet our requirements. We decided not to rule out Fairfield just because we didn't know much about it. Turns out, the house wasn't what we wanted so we left it at that.

But... the Monday after Easter, Jason emailed me and said, here it is, our dream home in Fairfield available (new construction, never lived in)!

So, let me explain that we loved a specific layout/model made by Trendmaker Homes. We loved how the guest suit was downstairs opposite the master suit, had it's own private bathroom and was next to the kitchen; giving our guest more privacy and most importantly they wouldn't have to go upstairs if health reasons made it harder for them! We also LOVED our master bathroom... wow is what it is! We loved the openness. We like how their is nothing above the master suit and bath (2 stories after the living room). It has 5 bedrooms and 4.5 baths. 3 car garage. Media room, game room and downstairs study. It has an upstairs beautiful balcony. Etc...

So we went to the model home on Tuesday to verify it was what we wanted, then the actual home in Fairfield (after researching Fairfield) and said we are interested and are going to get the process rolling. The manager for Trendmaker in Fairfield was off for the next 2 days, so our relator contacted the district manager. She agreed to give us the first right of refusal (meaning if someone came in and put an offer on the home they would give us the opportunity to put our offer first or allow them to get the home). Great deal. So we started getting everything signed and ready for our home to be put on the market. We were hoping to time it right so we could sell our house and move in to the new one around the same time instead of paying 2 mortgages. On Friday Jason got a call from our relator saying a meeting was going to take place in 30 minutes for another family to put an offer on the house. Going there with cash on hand for earnest money, Jason rushed over there. I spent the whole time praying for God's perfect will be done, as He knows what is best for everyone and what His plans are (big picture not just our lives...). The short of it, there was poor communication between the district manager and the Fairfield manager since he was off those days. He made a meeting Friday morning with this other family and said he felt he needed to honor that meeting. Jason graciously allowed for which they were so thankful. The short of it, we ended up starting to build our dream home, but Trendmaker felt so bad about the communication, they took an additional $10K off the already $15K promotion and with that $25K off we were able to get the same home we would have bought BUT add our upstairs balcony, great improvements to the blueprints and pick out all the wood, tile, carpet, grant, cabnets and backsplash, paint, positions of outlets and speakers and fans and lights and everything else, upgrades to sinks, etc, etc!!!!!!! What a gift!

So here is our family of 5 in front of our sold sign!

Here are Gavin and Wyatt walking around the lot after they framed for the foundation. I was explaining to them that they were going to build our new home on this very spot. I showed them where we would be eating and cooking and they looked at me with this awful face like 'why on earth are we moving here when we have a real home already', hehe! So I asked them if they wanted to see where the backyard was going to be, which they become super excited and yelled, 'yeah!' I pointed a few steps from us and said it will be right here... they looked at me disgusted and said, 'ewwwww'. Hehe! I then explained to them it would look a lot better than what you basically see in the picture below! So cute!

The boys and I got to have a 'foundation pouring picnic'! They loved the 'big trucks' the 'pump trucks so high' and the workers were so great with them honking and waving! They were really able to be a part of the whole experience!