Johnson Home of Eastern North Carolina

  I love being stopped and told how great the house looks and how much progress is being made. I think I heard the best comment today, though. "I see you got some sticks in the air now". Right he is. Enjoy a few pics from the progress made this week.  Before Thanksgiving From living room looking into kitchen/dining area Night visit Thanksgiving Day In the light Sunday Looking like a house Living room Kitchen Bonus room Garage AKA Brad's shop until we can afford to build him one   I love it when a plan comes together. :) Shout out to Amanda Rose for stopping by with her sister Tracey while we were there. Glad we could give y'all the tour. 

  Minor 3 week set back on the home building process. It's a good thing our framers were busy, busy bees but is it selfish to be pissed that they weren't busy with our house? Probably.   They were able to get started on Friday and Saturday to make up for the Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday they will be off. Fair enough. The progress they made in two days is pretty phenomenal. Perhaps I'm just naive when it comes to the home building process and time frames but I'm pretty impressed. Our contractor says we will still be framed and roofed in by Christmas, even with the set back. We still have a sinking feeling that we won't be in for Valentine's Day like our first home we built 6 years ago but no matter, I reckon.    Here's the latest picture from "our spot": the driveway we won't be using. Trying to keep up the progress through pictures from the same spot each time.  Floor box and some garage walls   Now, if w...

  I'm being extremely lazy tonight and don't feel much like typing but Brad and I are so proud of the progress so far. Gotta love it when a plan comes together. We look forward to many more wonderful days working with Etheridge Custom Homes.   For your viewing pleasure: A selfie with the freshly dug footings God's Country in the background, y'all. Pouring  Foundation coming together. #buildingonbuckhorn   Some of these pictures were taken by us and others were taking by Willie, our contractor. Check him our on Facebook-- Etheridge Custom Homes.

  I didn't feel it was completely necessary to update over the last two months because all we have done in that time frame is get our money approved and appraisal completed. It took longer than we had anticipated but what hasn't so far??   We feared that appraisal so bad. It was our make or break . It was going to tell us whether we could build this bad boy or wait it out a few more years. We really didn't want to be forced to do the latter since we had already shucked out $2,500 to cover the cost of drafting the floor plans and our various permits needed to get started building. Our contractor, who Brad and I affectionately refer to ask "Big Willie Styles" (A- I do not know why. B- this is a public blog so when he sees it, he will either laugh or be pissed.) had said "if all else fails, you'll just be out a couple thousand dollars." Just? Just?! Every penny we have may as well be gold. One income surely will teach you the value of a hard-earned do...

  Holy wow, this process is crazy! But I will say God works in mysterious ways and the plan you think you have will likely be tossed out the window.    This process isn't any cheaper than it was in the beginning but if we're ever going to do anything with that piece of land we have on Buckhorn Church Road, then we better start making some decisions.    We are so glad that the Lord made us wait before jumping into a decision. We've been known to be so excited about something that we just jump all in. About a month ago we were ready to sign a contract and get the ball rolling. We got a baby-sitter for the night (thanks, Grammy and PaPa) and drove the 20 minutes to this contractor's office with huge grins plastered on our faces. We just knew it was time-- we were going to sign that contract. We pull up into the driveway, wait for 10 minutes since he wasn't there yet, then just as we are about to ring his cell, he comes up and almost driv...

  HAHA! LOL! Teehehe! Bahahaha! LMBO! That's God laughing at our "plan"...  Our plan was to break ground Spring 2014. Umm, Summer 2014 is in about 30 days. So much for that plan.  God knows what we want and though we are being impatient, He has perfect timing. We will get our Forever Home when we are meant to have it.   Got back the numbers from a contractor we really liked... and it wasn't pretty. Way out of our price range. So we've been talking to yet another contractor. He seems very real and is super detailed in his hard estimate. We are waiting for his final number. Fingers crossed he is within our budget.  Mind you our budget has increased twice since we decided to buy land and build a house. We are so far away from what we had planned to spend on a 1600-1700 sq ft house it's not even funny. We honestly can't afford to increase it again. Like I told Brad about our beautiful, cleared one acre of land surrounded by growing corn, "I'm abou...

  I guess you could say I get a little jealous when I see all these awesome DIY projects gone RIGHT. I can't seem to get that to happen to me. I've even given up on Pinterest these days. So many cute ideas... but I lack a creative gene or something. It's super rare when I try to recreate the Pin that it actually comes out half decent.   Below you will find a few of my DIY projects lately. They didn't turn out terrible, I don't think. My motto is "when in doubt, buy some black spray paint." Gold Mirror Gone Black Mirror prepped for spraying End result- I cropped out the table on purpose.  I like the mirror painted black now but it is over a dark brown console table in my foyer and it just doesn't look great together. Whoops. The mirror is heavy and requires a screw in the wall to hang. Since we do not own our current house, I will wait until later to move it elsewhere. The console is a family heirloom in great condition so I dare no...

  Alright, I'm not an idiot but I've quickly learned that building a house is not nearly as easy or as cheap as you'd think. Whatever you have in mind that it will cost to build your home, go ahead and add about 15% more to that. It's ridiculous.   If I've said it a 100 times, I'll say it one more: "it's cheaper to live in a big city". TRUEST STORY I'VE EVER HEARD... or told. Cities have more competition, thus lower prices. Small towns have less to offer but with supply and demand, the prices are cray ! From the cost of gas to groceries to constructing your forever home, you might go broke. Let's not forget that the cost of living is ever-increasing everywhere but the paychecks stay the same.    Now, with all the pissing and moaning out of the way, THIS is what we wanted--  to be home around family and raise our family . I just think we were quite naive about expenses here.    To date we've met with two contractors and with one of th...

 Brad called the Land Records lady about our address. Good thing because she had forgotten. Imagine that! But nevertheless, we have an address now!   I texted Mom to tell her what her future neighbors' address is and she responds with "when are you putting up your mailbox?" Really, mom?? Kinda need the house to at least have some string markings for the foundation, first. Sheesh. She's a little bit excited for us. :)  Got a few other contractor names and have another meeting today for estimate #2. Brad and I have tossed around the idea of subscribing to Angie's List but thought it might not have too many listings for our area being as we are 1- a very rural area, 2- one of the poorest areas in the state, and thus, 3- not many are gonna pay for the Angie's List subscription to write reviews. Or maybe we have the wrong idea about this ol' Angie? Perhaps but still not investing. Word of mouth and physical proof seem to be the best way to go in this small ar...

 Well, we are at a sticking point with these 3 things. Haven't selected floor plans because we haven't talked to enough contractors and don't know if we'll be able to afford the house. Haven't chosen a financial institution because we don't know how much we'll need to borrow as we don't know how much the house will cost to build. Haven't selected a contractor because some institutions only finance NC licensed contractors. Is your head spinning yet? Because mine hasn't stopped... And we're only at the very beginning. Good grief.  We are looking at yet another floor plan because the only contractor we've talked to is about $20,000 more than we want to pay.  One bank has approved us for way more than we want to borrow and another only does 15 year mortgages now. This means a much higher monthly payment. Brad has a point- paying a lower monthly mortgage for a longer period of time means we end up paying $40,000-$60,000 extra for our house i...

  It's good having connections. It's not an abuse of privileges per say but rather a knowledge of how to use those connections. With Brad being an assistant engineer with DOT for the county we are building in, it kinda makes getting your driveway put in done quickly.   We had to purchase our 20 foot pipe from CRMP for about $180 then DOT came and put it in for free-- dirt and all. They would have provided rock too but seeing as it won't be the actual driveway we'll use (using the farm path beside our property as our garage will be side entry. Hard to explain but it makes sense to us...). Brad decided on no rock and to plant grass but DOT used a more silty dirt and we aren't sure how well grass will grow there. :( Maybe we need to ask DOT to come BACK and put down some rock so the dirt won't wash away. I guess it'll always be a "No" if we don't ask. Here are the pics: See farm path to the right.  Not much but you gotta start somewh...

Proverbs 24:27 Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house. This was in my morning devotional today. How appropriate? We keep getting asked if we've talked to a contractor yet, when are we planning on building, etc. It's borderline annoying but I just keep answering "Not yet. In due time. We are taking things one step at a time. Trying to complete one task before moving to the next." We have a plan or at least an outline of events and we're filling in the blanks as we go along. We are trying to prepare for the ups and downs and unexpectedness of building a house. I mean, we just got the deed to our land last week and we're already experiencing the unexpected. Building a house is stressful. People who have done it say if they had to do it all over, they'd buy a house. That's not very optimistic for us.  We just want to be as prepared as possible as to avoid as many "surprises" as we can. Of course we are in for ...

  After that incredibly awful Broncos defeat last night and all the really mean but "funny" posts all over the Internet, I feel compelled to explain why I am a Peyton Manning fan and not necessarily a Denver Broncos fan.   I grew up in a NASCAR home. You have a favorite driver, not a favorite auto racing team (i.e. Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports). Well, I guess some people do, but not my family. If our man was out of the race, then moderately pulling for another Richard Childress Racing teammate wasn't totally unheard of.    I was a Dale Earnhardt, Sr. fan… because my dad was. I would spend Sundays watching that black #3 go 'round and 'round those tracks. I guess my "relationship" with the player started at a young age. Watching NASCAR was a way for my dad and I to bond. I did everything I could to learn more about Dale, Sr. (or at that time in the 90s, he was just Earnhardt… Jr. hadn't made his NASCAR debut just yet.) I watched his in...

  Hoping to get the pre-approval paper work flowing next week with one bank. Might try two just to see what's up. With me not working and us on only one steady income, I don't have such good feelings about dem dolla signs the bank will allow us to have. We shall see.    I have family who works "high up" at this bank but doesn't deal directly with family (smart move, bro) so we've been directed to another loan officer. Said family member did let me in on what we need for a preapproval. And holyyyyy smokes, it's a lot of mess.  We need but are not limited to: - driver's license - SSN card - 3 years worth of income tax info - retirement/401k info - current bank account info (ALL accounts) - life insurance info - out-of-pocket health insurance info - 529 monthly contribution info - 3 of the most current pay stubs Good LAWD! It's taken me a few weeks to gather all that information. Whenever I think about searching for it, I get tired and ...

  The deed has been recorded. Playing with lawyers who know your family (because one landowner is your county's tax collector?!) and just consider this a whole "family deal" kinda makes for an easy, but I-don't-feel-taken-seriously affect. The deed was supposedly recorded two Fridays ago but I still can't pull it up on the online Register of Deeds. Maybe another Friday or two and I'll be able to see it. Our survey platt is there, though. That's a good sign, I guess? I loved how our lawyers were pretty much available to take my phone calls all the time but I didn't love how their receptionist/paralegal/legal assistants had no idea how to answer any of my questions. Like none of them. But instead of trying to help me find the correct answer, would just blow me off. Lots of deep breaths and persistence later, I found my answers. SHEWW!   The Land Use Program had some deferred taxes on our acre that we agreed with the landowners that Brad & I would pa...