Big Bear has been working day after day on our house plans, and together we’ve been making lots of decisions –

Closet or open space in a bedroom?
Brick or Stone?
Black or White Pella Windows?
Casement or double-hung?
Curved or square-top double front doors?
Stain color for the wood treatment on the exterior?
Hardie Plank Board & Batten siding color choice?
Bathroom tile choices?

Would you like to take a digital tour? This video is almost like what our home will look like, except there will not be an upstairs, it will have 4 bedrooms, there will be a full walk-out basement, the kitchen and family room will be larger with 17ft ceilings and beautiful triangular cross beams on the ceiling.

And why couldn’t all this have taken place when the interest rates and costs were lower? We made a nice sale of our Weddington NC home in May, after living there for 17 years. It was difficult to leave it behind in search of new dreams – retirement dreams. I must say that taking this plunge in our 60s is not easy, but I am hopeful it will all have been worth it.

The home we want to build is Plan #56510SM from Architectural Designs. After looking at hundreds of house plans, we decided that this one definitely fit our needs and wants in a one-level home with a basement option. It has a large family room with 2 story vaulted ceiling that will have decorative stained wood beams, a two story large brick or stone real wood burning fireplace (we love our fireplaces), spacious chef’s kitchen where Bob (aka Big Bear) can work his magic, nice closets and bathrooms, large and deep front porch, nice size laundry room for our needs, all handicapped accessible doorways (in the event one of us ends up in a wheelchair), and more little details we love.

Over our 30 year marriage, Bob and I have developed similar tastes and hopes for our future. When we purchased the home in Weddington, NC, we honestly thought that was going to be our last home. It was about 4500+ sqft on two levels with a crawlspace. A Georgian Colonial with charm and good bones. It was a great home to raise our family and to care for my mother, who lived with us for 24 years before her passing this past January 14th at the age of 97. She had her own bedroom and full bath on the main level off of the family room, and never had to worry about going up or down steps. Our Weddington home served all of our needs until our children married and moved away, and my mother passed away. It was just us – Big Bear and myself – in this big house. Keeping up with the yard and landscaping, exterior needs, repairs, and cleaning too, was difficult for us. It was a lot easier when we had a big family and everyone was pitching in, but now, we have different needs.

The thought of selling our home used to give me serious indigestion. Just thinking of cleaning out the attic spaces, the garage, and all the closets would send me into a panic. Reflecting on all we went through during those months of preparing the house for the market gives me a massive headache. But we did it. Somehow, we did it. And we sold it in less than a day on the market.

But before we even thought of having our listing go “live,” we purged attic spaces, every closet, and the garage. We got rid of absolutely everything we didn’t want or need. None of this “Well, someday, we might want to …. or need it for ….” Out it went. Goodwill or Garbage, take your pick. I didn’t have time for yard sales either, although I did sell a lot of furniture on Facebook Marketplace – the furniture the kids didn’t want were out the door as fast as possible. It’s amazing how much “stuff” one accumulates as years go by, especially if you stay in one place for a long time.

So, here we are in transition, with lots of dreams and ideas to maul over, but I am hopeful it will all come together nicely.

In the meantime, we purchased almost 3 acres in a Blue Ridge Mountain Community we love. Incredible long range mountain views, plenty of space, paved roads in a 3200+ acre community with horse trails, hiking trails, beautiful creeks, a waterfall, a lovely lodge, and more. We wanted to live in the mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains. We definitely wanted to get away from all the development and traffic and shopping centers. We wanted to be able to sit outside on a summer night and soak in the magnificence of the heavens above us. We were tired of hearing traffic and fire engines, landscaping equipment and leaf blowers, it all got to be a bit much.

Now that it is all in the works, we are working together to make some minor changes to the house plans, determining the way the house will sit on the property, where to install a well and septic, what trees to take down, and which ones to keep. A lot goes into planning and building a new home.

The home we build will not look like the images you see here. We will have added decorative red cedar awnings over the front windows (not under the porch) in addition to window boxes for flowers and plants and a tin roof on the awnings. Some of the windows will be larger than you see pictured here. The columns on the front porch will be made of 10×10 stained red cedar. The garage doors will be stained red cedar too. it will have lots of curb appeal and charm.

See this picture above? This is my vision for our home – a calm creamy beige verticle hardie board siding color coupled with this rich cinnamon stain on the red cedar elements. The front porch walk, walkway leading to the front porch from the driveway, the foyer, and a few wall elements in the interior will be used brick.

We want this last home to feel welcoming and cozy for everyone who visit and all who will live there. A home that we hope will be in our family for generations.

Can’t wait to share it all with you!