Coming Soon: A New House

by Ed Rozmiarek
We have entered into a new phase of our life.

Susan and I have owned a piece of land in a large lot subdivision in Liberty Hill, Texas (about 15-20 miles north of Austin) for a little over six years now. We have talked about building a house on this land ever since we bought it. A few years ago we actually started designing a timber frame house. We met with a timber framer from east Texas, visited their shop and contracted to have the house designed. A couple years and more than a few dollars later, our project kind of stalled. I think we both knew that we could not afford the house we wanted but neither one of us wanted to conceed the possibility.

Eariler this year I asked Susan what she wanted for her birthday this year. Her answer was that she wanted to finally build our new house and get out of the suburban life. After some discussion, we both realized that we just could not afford our dream house unless we won a lottery. (Funny thing about lotteries, it's really hard to win if you don't buy the tickets.) So with new resolve and a goal of being in our new house next summer, we restarted, with plans on building a more conventional house, but one with the look we wanted.

The view from about where the front porch will be.

The view of the oak trees that are about midway back on the lot. This be the view from the back porch.

After doing some research and investigation, we decided to use Ed Wohlrab Designer Homes to build our house. They have built several homes in our new subdivision and we have been able to see several of the houses they built while under construction. They also specialize in the Texas hill country style homes we like. Also, we could design our house like we wanted instead of working from some set of stock plans that many of the big name builders start with.

We have spent the last four months working on the plans but we finally have them done. In fact, this past Tuesday, we closed on the construction loan for the new house and have committed ourselves to actually building our new house and moving.

Susan and Shea checking out the trees.

Shea exploring what will soon be his back yard.

So now we have two mortgages, a ton of decisions yet to make and have to get our current house ready to sell. The next few months are going to be hectic but hopefully exciting as well as we see our new house being built from the ground up. It's going to be fun.

Check back here for updates as we blog our way through building our new house.