We’ve lived in this apartment since May of last year, and it is sad that it has taken this long to get the ball rolling and start building our new home. That day can’t come soon enough. Apartments are far too expensive, cheaply built, have the worst appliances, and cheapest flooring and carpeting. No cabinet space, small rooms, and the dang place costs more than we were paying for our home in Weddington! This is Nuts! But hey, dreams are in the making, and hopefully I won’t drop dead before we can enjoy our new home in the mountains.

We had a rude awakening about 2 months ago when we met with a builder at The Coves Lodge. Bob had spent so much time making edits to house plans we had purchased, only to find out that it would cost a million to build. Yep. A hot million for a 2700 sq ft home. Costs to build are going up, while now, here in North Carolina anyway, prices of existing homes on the market are beginning to come down. It is times like these I wish we were 20 years younger, we’d buy that fixer-upper and make it dream worthy.

I ran across a beautiful home on Zillow about 2 months back. The exterior is beautiful, built in 1741. It has had renovations over the years, but sadly, it resides in a 30 year flood plain. Just what you don’t want. It would be our luck, with global warming, that the entire house would be flooded within a year of moving in. No thanks.

Or how about this beauty? Built in 1934 and filled with loads of charm! Only problem is – the entire inside of this home needs to be gutted. I’m serious – down to the studs. By the time a new owner finishes renovating this home, it will be beautiful, but they will have spent over a million easily to get it all done.

Fortunately, we have a great builder. Tripp White owns October Glory Farms here in North Carolina, and this guy stays very busy. His business model is one of integrity, something hard to find in builders or business anywhere these days. Everyone else we spoke to wanted to scalp us out of house and home! Boy, do many of these builders see you coming. Some of them are worse than used car salesmen. I believe we hit the jackpot when we found Tripp. He is building quality homes and working well with his clients. He works on a Cost Plus model, so you know what you are paying for, and he more than earns his commission. We’ve walked through one of his homes being built down the street from our property, and seen others in the community that he has also built, and we are impressed with the quality of his home builds. I’m glad we found him.

So, the first house we wanted to build was 2700 sq ft. Pretty as a picture, but way out of our price range, sadly. Back to the drawing board, we began to look at 2000 sq ft home plans. We found a few that were interesting, but then we happened to walk into a model home in Asheville – The Blue Ridge Model by Schumacher Homes. This little house has charm and it is like a cottage, a craftsman style home with lots of character inside and out. Sadly, the client reviews are terrible for this builder. Their marketing is great, and their model homes are beautiful, but the results of the homes they build around here is not so good. We are left wondering how this company is still in business with the sheer number of bad reviews and Better Business Bureau complaints.

Fortunately, Tripp had a house plan of a cottage craftsman style home that he could build for us, similar to the home he is building now just down the way from our lot; and, it would fit within our budget. With just a few minor revisions to the original plan, I believe it will be a lovely home for us in our retirement years.

We are hoping that 2023 holds good things for us as we continue on this journey of building our last home. These things take a lot of time and a lot of work.