Here we go

Building a house is a big deal. We've never done it before, so perhaps it's more daunting than we know, but it's a big deal anyway. Since getting married, our lives have been surrounded by change. House, kids, business, hobbies, all evolving quickly or slowly, depending on your point of view.

We found this lot by chance, a referral from a co-worker. There was a battle getting it, a story for a different day but worth it in the end. Five acres, flat, in an area of rural development with homes across the county road from us in the $600,000 to 900,000 range. With a clean-but-old mobile home on it plus one 12x16' shed, the first thing we did was "throw up" a shop. At 2400 square feet plus a bonus upstairs, it's a place to collect our stuff and prepare for the next phase.

Our shop is really a multi-purpose building, with spaces for Motorcycles, woodworking, auto shop and Sandi's '53 Belair, our camper (we dream of it fitting) and a small office. On one end we used a different truss system which allowed room for an upstairs. That will be a play room with space for a nice theater system.

Putting that shop up taught me one very important thing: I'm not doing the roof. Actually, it made me aware of how much time it takes to do each required task. It took the better part of a year to get the base structure up, and I've been working on it ever since.

I'll try to figure how to caption these photos, for future installments. Suffice to say, these are of the shop construction. Sandi is shown with Hailey in her arms, and in the picture of Amanda she is three (I think!).