This may as much serve as a corrective tool for us (me) when we want to look back a few years from now. If we are ever tempted to say "Building a house? It wasn't too bad. It was pretty easy!" we can look back at this blog and be reminded of the real story. Humans, and especially optimistic ones, tend to forget negative experiences.
Anyway, I digress. Way back in the fall of 2011, before we even moved to Atlanta, we had the idea that we would build our own modern house. This was based on our love of our previous home in Houston as much as it was based on the lack of modern architecture in Atlanta. So I did some research online and found that there was a modern architecture tour in Atlanta in June -- just 3 weeks before our 2nd boy was to be born. Hooray!
Based on our impressions on that tour, we interviewed 5 residential, self-professed "modern" architects. Choosing among them wasn't actually that hard. There were two we really liked, and Cara and Jose of TaC really seemed to get what we were striving for. (In truth, we had no idea what we really wanted.)
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| Cara and Jose of TaC Studios |
Finding a spot to build a house seemed like it would be pretty straightforward. However, it turns out this was very challenging for a number of reasons. First, the Atlanta housing market isn't that depressed it turns out. At least, in town things are pretty pricey, and even tear-downs are fetching good prices -- at least by Houston standards. Secondly, we began to realize that we had a number of "top" priorities. Our goals grew to include: (a) proximity to work (b) good public schools (c) flat lot (d) enough yard space for our boys to safely kick a ball without being run over by city buses and (e) lenient local zoning that would allow for construction of a modern home. Oh, and (f) cheap enough that after purchasing the property, we would still have a few bucks left over to build said house!
We began the process of searching for a lot in June, and finally found a lot in August. Writing that out just now, I realize how quick that seems. But during the process, it felt like...at least twice that long. And the process of finding land was depressing enough that we definitely questioned the wisdom of going through all of this. "Why not go out and buy an existing home on a nice street around here somewhere?" we'd say to ourselves at night after searching Zillow and the MLS for a few more hours.1 We rode around with 3 different realtors, and actually had others searching for us as well. We ultimately put in offers on 8 different properties before we came to our final lot. Eight is a lot of offers, a lot of signatures and a lot of "this is it" anticipation. Of course, after bid number three, we wouldn't allow ourselves any optimism and were certain something would fall through. We'd be outbid, or our bid would be "just an hour" late, or something. Other times we were the ones killing the deal: a bad elementary school, an awkward home that would be an expensive teardown, but a quirky remodel, and restrictive local zoning all made us reconsider. Still, 8 bids is a lot of bids and we were fairly close to going with one of the myriad 1930s Victorian renovations that seem to be on the market.
Finally, one property, which had been on the market all summer but had escaped our (realtors') enthusiasm became more obviously appealing. Cara and Jose came out and gave their approval, and we closed on the property in September!
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| A is our property. Lots of woods behind us. I don't know what that Chamber of Delights is all about. Sounds like something from the Nutcracker. |
So here's the property, pretty much as it still looks today, three months after our having closed. Nothing has been torn down yet, and we are still quite a ways from breaking any ground.
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| Spoiler alert: the nice big oak tree in the front is probably going to be timber in the spring. |
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