Finding a builder

It took us almost as long to find a builder as it did to find the property, maybe longer. Part of the problem was that we didn't know what we wanted to build. We started out with grand ideas, then blanched at the cost and revised our expectations downward.

We stared thinking in terms of the 1,800 square feet minimum that the HOA required and talked to a builder whose published prices seemed reasonable. But by the time we added a walk-out basement and some covered porches, the price skyrocketed. What that builder quoted us for a dried in shell was more than a family member had paid for an entire house, with appliances, before the economy tanked. Now we were in a housing slump and it was going to cost us more for a small, rustic dried in shell than a whole finished house? We couldn't believe it. We kept looking.

Gerald got the idea of building a house that looked like a barn. Oddly enough, I had once had a long-forgotten fantasy about converting an old barn into a house. I also had a fantasy about living off the grid, and we started to think in those terms as well.

Gerald found two barn builders in Seattle who would build a dried-in shell of a barn house for about $20 a square foot, which was much more in line with what we had in mind. That meant that our house plans suddenly got big again, but we had also started to see the potential down the road of making it home full time. And at $20 a square foot, we could do it.

We went to Seattle and saw examples of both builders' work. We also told a new batch of local contractors we had been talking to what they were competing against. One was up to the task. We liked him. He seemed to get what we were after, was fully licensed and thought he could do better on the price. Sold.

Next came the issue of siting the house. For as long as we had owned the land, we had been thinking of one or two sites over looking the meadow. But when we walked the land with our new builder, we surprised ourselves by taking a second look at an area we had ruled out, even though it was a better building site. We wanted our view to face what we have been calling Weaver Peak, our best guess based on the gazetteer. We rejected the spot because it obscured our view of the peak and gave us a lovely view of the mica mine. But moving a little farther west, we found the view quite acceptable.

 

When we staked out the house, it wasn't

perfect. Because we needed to face due south to take advantage of the solar panel, the peak 

would be a nice view from the master suite, not the living room. The east side of the house still had a lovely view of the mica mine. But

 we did face a nice boulder formation we always liked. So were were all set to go. We made an appointment with our builder to meet him at the land on Saturday. 

Saturday arrived. We got up early to make the trip north and there was a message from our builder on Gerald's cellphone. We didn't think it worrisome, as Gerald had left a message the night before that he wanted to push the time back a little. We hadn't heard from him and assumed he was responding. Gerald listen to the message, then said: "Paul's moving to Missouri."