We're Building A House

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." 

- Ferris Bueller's Day Off

It seems near impossible that six months ago we packed up our lives in Georgia and moved out here to Utah. It seems unimaginable to think that so much time has already past. With the kids both being in school this year, it feels like more than ever time is literally slipping between my fingers. 

When we moved here, we knew we would be renting for a year or two, and then buying or building after that, but we didn't imagine that things would happen as they have. Our main goal when we got here was to pay down our student loans and car payments fast. I did a sponsored post in the fall that had a pretty big payout, and with that we paid off the remaining balance on the car we'd purchased in North Carolina four years ago. Then after we did our taxes in January, we used our return to pay off the remaining balance on the student loan that we owed to Derek's last employer since that monthly payment was eating up 25% of our income, and then all of a sudden we had a lot more money in our monthly budget that we could play with. 

We started looking at homes to buy, but felt discouraged that everything that was already built seemed so far out of our price range, and things that we could afford were either in poor schools, or would make such a long commute for Derek each day that it felt like a tradeoff we weren't willing to make. We also keep hearing that it's impossible to buy in Utah right now anyways, because when a house goes on the market, if you don't have an offer in within three hours, the house is already gone. Everyone kept telling us that if we could afford to build, we should go that route because it's so much easier than buying right now. 

So we looked at our options. If we wanted to build in Davis County we would pay about $350,000, be completely house poor, and Derek would still have a long commute to work each day. When we moved here over the summer, we kept feeling this small little pull to Tooele County, but we decided against it at the time because we figured no one would ever want to come west to visit us in Tooele. 

A couple weeks ago we saw that there were some new construction homes being built in the very northeast end of Tooele County though, and that they were in our price range, and cut Derek's commute to work in half. All of a sudden a feeling that we brushed off months ago became very hard to resist. I drove out with the kids last week while Derek was at work, and after seeing the area, walking through the model home, and seeing that the standard options were all actually nice options, I was completely sold. I called Derek and without him seeing the place, he agreed we'd put down money on our lot on Friday (three days ago from when this is written.) 

We're excited and nervous for the building process. I'm excited to pick out the finishes, and work with the builder as he makes it a handicap accessible home for Em. At the same time, I'm nervous because after we remodeled our kitchen in Georgia, I didn't exactly love how it turned out, and so I'm anxious in making a bad choice with something. 

There are tradeoffs to the town we're moving to. Derek's commute is cut in half, but it has a population of less than 500 and hasn't been recorded on the US census since 1950. The kids will have to get bussed or driven to schools in the next town five miles away, which is where I'll also have to do any shopping and errands. There isn't a Target in the county, which is probably a good thing, but hilarious to think I might not ever shop there ever again. 

Overall though, this is what we wanted. As we've driven through the desolate towns of Northern Utah on our way to Idaho over the last six months, I've found myself day dreaming of what it would be like to live in a rural Utah town that isn't so densely populated and built up like so many other Utah communities. Our neighborhood backs right up to some mountains that I can run on while the kids are at school, and that we can hike as a family during the weekends. I imagine our family gaining a four wheeler and a dune buggy and spending our free time blazing trails, and living an adventurous life right in our own backyard. November 28th can't come soon enough.