Hey readers! This is the part where I briefly share the early stages of our ridiculous journey towards building a “forever”/ long-term home on Restoring Roots Homestead. Ridiculous is not an overstatement.
This process has proven a bit frustrating. I have, at times, yelled about it. Not around anyone, just by myself. And then I pray about it and remember that it’s outside of my control (which is good) and every little detail is orchestrated and carried out for a reason. Something I need to chew on, daily, for the next 50-60 years: God is good, ALL THE TIME. Even when I feel like yelling.
Early on in 2020, i.e. before the pandemic really flared up in the US and brought everything to a halt, we started working with a great team of architects local to Indianapolis. We were able to meet in-person a few times to start fleshing out a concept for our house, and I can’t emphasize enough how exciting and helpful it was for us to be working with people who professionalize in home design. This part was fun. Then, COVID-19 became a significant concern for everyone, and everything shut down. I didn’t work for 8 weeks (it’s hard to do dental hygiene remotely), Jeremiah was stuck at home as well, and we had to shift design meetings and communications completely online. It worked, but it wasn’t as fun. Oh, and trying to work with the county to get the ball rolling on permits and such? Not fun at all. Everything became more complicated, took longer to do, and even cost more.
We had been renting a storage space since September of 2019 to hold all of our stuff until we could move onto the homestead, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that we wouldn’t be making this move for a while. Our tools were in this storage space as well, which we wanted easy access to as we were starting to tame the land. We decided it was a good time to put a “farm building”/ shop on the homestead to temporarily store our household items and get them out of the storage rental (and stop paying that monthly fee), as well as to get our lawn mower under cover and store our tools for the long-term. We ordered a 12×20 structure from a local shed-building company, started prepping the ground where we wanted to place it, and THEN found out through the permit process the list of requirements for such a structure and that it couldn’t go on the property prior to the primary structure (house). GROSS. Our farm building was already being constructed (ahead of schedule, nice twist there) and we had paid for it in full. We found out that the concern about us putting a shed on the property first before having a house was that we would decide to secretly live in that shed and not build a house at all. COME ON. Did I mention earlier that our journey has been ridiculous? Yep. So… I’ll share a picture here of how well Jeremiah prepped a spot for the farm building, and I’ll share another picture of the actual farm building installed *LATER*.
Not only did we have to deal with challenges involving the design process, permits, and the start of construction contracts, we also faced another completely unexpected hurdle: getting a construction loan in the middle of an economy-wrecking pandemic when our credit scores had “disappeared” over the course of 9-10 months of no loan/credit activity. When we moved back to Indy, we had no debt. We didn’t even have credit cards because of their reputation for encouraging extra spending. No big deal, we thought at the time. Unfortunately, since every step of this journey took way longer than it normally would have, our STELLAR credit scores went dormant and literally fell off the radar. We were turned down by several lenders because they couldn’t pull up a credit score for us at all. It was a nightmare. Thankfully, our architects/general contractor referred us to “Rural 1st”, which ended up working (after months). This long, crazy ordeal of simply getting to the starting line to break ground has made us more resilient, more patient, and more appreciative of ANYTHING THAT GOES SMOOTHLY the first try. But, it all meant that we were starting construction as Indiana heads into winter. Stay tuned for all of that fun.
Until next time,
Holly