Where do we start?

Once we settled on our decision to move back to Indiana, we had to get started on figuring out our plans. We knew we wanted to build again, but we also knew we would need to sell our home in Colorado and move back before we could get started on actually building. We also had to discuss where we will live while our home is being built. Thankfully both our families were generous enough to offer for us to live with them, so we have options!

First, we needed to find a piece of land. We wanted to be close to family, and there were lots still available in the subdivision Lexi’s brother and sister-in-law are currently building a home in. We went back and forth with a few different lots–wooded, not wooded, different sizes, etc.–and ultimately settled on a non-wooded 1 acre plot.  Colin has always wanted a decent amount of land, and in Colorado that is extremely expensive and hard to come by. So finding this lot in Indiana was a great bonus of moving back. 

Next, we had to start working on a floor plan. We decided it would be best to find an existing plan that we like and bring it to an architect to make any changes we may want. Cue searching through hundreds of floor plans 🤪. 

When we built our home in Colorado, we really wanted it to be a ranch. However, the builder we chose only offered a select number of floor plans and didn’t allow two of the same plan to be built next to each other. The lot next to us was under contract before we were, and they were building the ranch plan. So we had to choose a two story (which is beautiful, and we love it, but long-term we still wanted a ranch). Now that we have this chance to build again and make it more custom, we knew it had to be a ranch.

We also had a few other checklist items we wanted to look for in a plan. We were looking for 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. We wanted to stay around 2800 square feet. We wanted the primary suite to be on the opposite side of the house from the extra rooms, and we wanted the laundry room to be connected to the primary closet. We also wanted a nice backyard patio (we currently have a nice, covered back patio, and it’s one of our favorite things about the house). 

Turns out, it’s pretty difficult to find a plan with 3 bedrooms that has a dedicated bathroom for each bedroom plus the other items we wanted. Maybe it was our square footage constraint. However, as long as the plan we settle on is under our max square footage, we are going to be able to add another bathroom without issue. 

We had settled on a plan, but as we started talking to architects we were having second thoughts about what we chose. We decided to look again, and enlisted the help of some family that has experience in finding great plans for homeowners. We then found a plan that we fell in love with and felt more confident was meeting our criteria. We sent the plan to an architect with some initial changes we want, and now we just have to go through the process of finalizing our prints.

We are going for a modern exterior with angled roof lines and plenty of windows. We also want an oversized 3 car garage. On this plan, there are stairs going up to a bonus room. We won’t be doing the bonus room so the only stairs in the house will be to the basement (which is staying unfinished for now). There are some other changes we want to make, but we’ll talk about that as we progress with the architect. The moral of the story is, find a plan that has good bones for what you want. You can always make some changes to the exterior and interior with an architect.

We’re excited to have these couple things checked off the list (buy a lot, start on a floor plan with an architect). Now, we will spend the next couple months finalizing our blueprints, selling our home in Colorado, and making the move back to Indiana. Our current goal is to start digging sometime in June. Fingers crossed we can make things happen!

‘Till next time 🙂