House: The Beginning

Well ... I haven't done any posts in awhile - blame it on Twitter or having no time or not being in a very exciting place like Ireland or France anymore - regardless, Patrick and I are about to build a house, so what better place to record our thoughts than on the blog.

Crazy, isn't it? The economy has crashed - primarily due to the house bubble bust. It seems the majority of house farms are in foreclosure. And the good portion of the unemployment rate is due to the construction trade essentially shutting down. So why not build a house.

So being able to have our pick of houses, why are we actually building one from scratch? A couple reasons ...

1. We want space
We have lived in a 40' X 100' lot for the last 11 years. I know that sounds big to all our European friends, but once you take into consideration the big magnolia tree in the front yard, we have no space to grow anything. The farmer's markets are getting really good in Indy - but they aren't cheap, and they still don't have some of the varieties of fruits and vegetables and ducks that we found in France.
Don't get me wrong, we've tried (well, not the ducks) - and we have a nice crop of lemons this year to prove it - but there are just too many things we've wanted to grow and raise that we can't in the middle of the city. Besides Patrick is a country boy through and through.

2. Quality over quantity
There are no shortage of houses here in the US ... provided you have 2.2 kids and want to go with the mainstream elements of an American house - stick frame construction, wasted spaces, and parts that need to be replaced in a few years.
I never understood why European homes are so much sturdier than US homes - we're the ones who have to deal with tornadoes. And as of this writing, I think Indiana has less than 10 buildings that follow the German passiv haus standard (think LEEDS on steroids). Whereas Austria has something ridiculous like 30% of their houses built to this standard.
And nothing taught us the value of having a well designed space than living in the apartment in Strasbourg - at 600 square feet, they couldn't afford to waste any space. Everything was so well thought out that you sometimes forgot how small the place was.

3. We ain't gonna live forever
We can't grow old in our current house - too many steps and too narrow hallways. And if it's one thing that pisses off aging relatives more - is loss of independence and privacy. Seeing my relatives enter their twilight years, you realize how unprepared our houses are to take care of us later in life. That one little step can be a pretty big barrier when you aren't steady on your feet. And that one small apartment off the house has a lot of uses.

Also we don't want to build a house that's so specialized for us that we could never sell it. I know people say that they'll die in their custom house, so they don't care about resale value - but that's just not reality - change is. The housing market is not the healthiest and will stay that way for years - no sense handicapping ourselves more. That being said, putting in a $2K garden tub or 5 bedrooms that you will never use just for the resale value is just stupid.