First Entry - Background and pre-dig date

I'm going to start off by saying that this whole pipe dream around building a house started on a whim.  We noticed that the lot 4 houses down from us that had a house fire in 2006 went up for sale.  There was a very large 2 car wide and 2 car deep garage left on the lot.  It was the exact same size lot as ours.

We loved the area that we live in (Westlake, OH) as it has all of the amenities we need and very close to both of our families.  We loved where we lived but not the house we lived in.  It was kind of my college bachelor party house and now that we were married with a 2-year old and a dog we wanted more.  We had done something to every room in the house along with tons of work outside but we just wanted more.

Shout-outs:

• Stacy Watson (stacywatsonkw@gmail.com) - Our realtor and good friend.  She pointed us in the right direction for getting our house sold (in only 12 days), managed a lot of back and forth for our lot purchase, and even supplied some key ideas for the new house.  If you are in the Cleveland area and need a realtor you can trust, she is your gal.
• George Potz - Did all of our handy man and painting to get the new house ready for buyers.  He's a great guy and his wife is our sitter for our little one.  Let me know if you need his services and I'll point you in the right direction. 
• Bryan Wolff - Tree trimmer extraordinaire.  Bryan and his team knocked out 3 monster trees for us.  He's been a friend forever and always willing to lend a helping hand.
• Scott Parker (sparker@ffl.net) - Our First Federal of Lakewood loan officer.  We love FFL as we do our personal banking with them as well.
• Jenn Kingure - Our Wayne Homes New Home Consultant.  She really took our vision and put it down on paper and truly the main reason why we went with Wayne Homes in the first place.  Ironically we were scheduled to work with someone else until that person went on maternity leave (I can't imagine it working out any better).  She was so patient with us as we changed our plans over and over again.
• Laurie Kyser - Our Home Office Production Administrator.  She handled all of the planning from when we signed with Wayne Homes to the dig date.  It's sad that we won't be working with her anymore.
• Zach Miller - This will now be my new best friend.  He's our Field Manager (FM) and responsible for building our perfect dream home in a reasonable timeframe.
• My Mom & Dad - They have helped us out so many times over the years that has gotten us where we are today and for that I can't thanks you enough.
• My Wife's Mom - This lady is taking us into her home while ours is being built.  This is a HUGE deal with a 2-year old and another dog but I think it ends up working out for everyone.
• My Wife's Dad and Step Mom - Much like my parents they have helped us along the way especially with our deck on the old house.  Time to build a new one.
• Family, Friends and Anyone Else We Missed - Thanks for all of the kind words and support, we can't wait to share it all with you.

To make a long story short my wife and I did a lot of investigating and after selling our home, buying the lot, and moving next door with my mother-in-law (did I forget to mention that I married the girl next door?) we signed with Wayne Homes.  We were very impressed with their craftsmanship, reasonable pricing, and very friendly customer service from our New Home Consultant (Jenn) out of the Norton office. 

We started off looking at the Jamestown then ended up using the base of the Hampton and did a lot of customizations to the floor plan to create a very open concept.  Below I've attached the drawings that we started with.  We were pretty pleased with ourselves on this.  We've since made many other changes and customizations but this is our basic layout.

I'm going to start this blog off on August 9th (even though it's already August 26th - I'll try and fill in the gaps with more posts as I find time) as it's the last picture I took prior to demolition of the garage.  It was a pretty large pain in the butt lining up the demolition guy, the electric temp pole, dealing with the City of Westlake, and everything else you have to do when not dealing with a big box builder on their lot vs. yours but we feel very confident that we will appreciate it that much more.

I was really inspired to start the blog based on others that we read (http://waynehomes.com/customer-blogs-and-reviews).  I think it would be good to share this story with others as well as use it as a tracking mechanism for our journey.  Might be really cool to look back on a couple years from now.