It’s honestly surreal to type the title for this blog post because it doesn’t even feel real that we not only built our dream home but that we get to live here. I can’t really describe how surreal it is, but throughout the process, it felt like a side project (thanks to our amazing builders) and I sometimes forget the whole fact that we actually get to live in it — it’s ours! It’s our home!

We bought our land back in 2020, so it’s wild to watch every part of this process unfold from exploring the woods and dreaming of a place here to designing the floor plans with our builder Alma Homes to watching the footings be poured and the ground broken — it has been such a long but beautiful process and it’s wild that I’m typing this while looking at the view in a whole different way: from the windows of our home! 

After about a month delay where we moved up to our lake house, we got to finally get our moving truck unpacked and start to settle into our space. I can’t stop soaking in all of the details, knowing we intentionally picked them for our space. From the light fixtures to the drawer pulls, each piece was chosen and selected for this home and now all that’s left for us is to soak it all in and enjoy!

Move In Day

Since we had to pack up and get out of our old house and then nestled in up north, we didn’t get to really see the final stages of the build process. We had historically gone to the house once a week to check in on what was happening and since we were 2.5 hours away, we were a little in the dark in all of the finishing touches as they got wrapped up! I was passing through town after a trip and got to swing by the house and my goodness, I was in awe of all of the finishing touches. I swear, every turn I made I would see something new from our front doors being installed to our kitchen pendants, it was just so cool to see all of our selections in real life!

During my visit, it was pretty chaotic with so many contractors and people working to wrap things up. It honestly gave me so much gratitude for all of the humans who helped put our home together. I loved seeing all of the action knowing that in a few short days, we’d get to be in the quiet and peace of all of their hard work.

We had a slow move in process (intentionally!) So on Monday, we got in (there were still painters and a few contractors finishing up their work) as we moved in some of the new furniture we got and worked on emptying one of our storage pods that had been holding on to our stuff. Tuesday the movers came with everything from our last house and then on Wednesday we spent our first night in the house as a family. Thankfully, my parents let us crash with them and helped us with the girls during the move-in process (bless them!) 

Our Favorite Things So Far

It was funny, even in the process of building, there were certain things that Drew and I would just get so excited over. He couldn’t stop thinking about the home gym and the garage! I was so excited about things like the wallpaper and cabinets. We were both super pumped for our sauna and cold plunge and having those as a part of our everyday life! It’s impossible to sum up how it feels to not only go through the process of designing a home but really design our lives to the space that we’ve been dreaming of for over two years.

One of the most surprising aspects has been the lighting – as a photographer, it’s a dream. The amount of natural light in this space is honestly unreal. I keep thinking we’ve left lights on but in reality, it’s just the sunshine! Our house is situated at the top of a hill so we have views of the woods for days, no houses in sight, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets, something we didn’t even think about but absolutely love. 

It’s also been amazing watching Coco get settled in! She has a brand new room, a fun big girl bed (bless the fact that she no longer sleeps in her transitioned crib) and she’s loving the playroom downstairs. I swear overnight her independence skyrocketed even more and she absolutely loves her new places to hang! It’s been really cool to watch it sink in with her that this is now our house and we get to live here. She’s been a part of this journey from when she was tiny and we bought the land through the whole construction process. 

Breaking in the House with Hosting

Not even five days after moving in, we hosted my entire family at our new place. It honestly was so much fun and gave us a push to keep getting through what felt like endless boxes. We had everyone over, watched football, ordered pizza, hit the sauna and cold plunge up — it felt so special and just so right. I was curious if I’d feel anxious with everything being so new and perfect but honestly, it was the opposite! Seeing people in our space and enjoying it was so special. For a lot of my family, it was their first time out to our land and seeing the home so it felt like an episode of MTV Cribs showing them around! 

Pro Tip: Whenever we host, we always order takeout. Call it lazy but I want us to be making memories too and not stuck in the kitchen! Thankfully my family loves a good pizza (and as humans who literally served pizza at their wedding, I think we set the stage of what people can expect from us as hosts!) It’s easy, relatively affordable, and has little to no clean up which means more time to enjoy the company you’re with! 

The Best Parts of Building Our Home

Building a home is a dream come true — honestly, something I never even really thought would be possible. I absolutely loved dreaming up a space that would work for our lives and the way we live! Getting to be so intentional and specific in things like where the bedrooms are, the size of the garage, how we wanted a separate but attached office — the ability to customize our needs and get exactly what we wanted was incredible, especially because we work and live in the same space.

I also loved how we got to choose every finish! I absolutely love home design and after having bought and furnished four different homes over the years, it was so fun to really think about where we wanted more traditional options and where we wanted to take risks with our design! While it can be a little overwhelming at time to think about alllll the things from drawer pulls to door knobs to trim and paint, our team helped guide us into decisions we’re obsessed with!

MORE BEHIND-THE-SCENES HOME BUILD POSTS:

• Behind the Build: Our December Update
• Behind the Build: Our November Update 
• Behind the Build: Our Girl’s Jack and Jill Bathroom
• Behind the Build: Our Mudroom Plan
• Behind the Scenes of Our Custom Home Build
• Behind the Build: Our Kitchen Inspiration
• Behind the Build: Our Fall Update 
• Surprise: We’re Building a House 

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