Two steps forward, giant fall backwards

Typical week on the compound. Running to work, picking up kids, dinners, laudry, blah blah blah. So Tuesday morning, Kyle gets to go meet with the engineer. Basicly, we had our house plan, one that had been built before by our builder, and the engineer was reviewing it to see if we could make a few changes. The answer: NO. There was a wall and the stairs we wanted to move, and that just couldn't be done. I was a little disappointed, but thought no big deal it will still work.

Overnight I got an idea...and I acted on it. So the builder had built this house before, and I have driven (stalked) by it a few times to take photos of the exterior secretly in my car. I liked how it looked and everything. Well with my sweet googling and investigation skills, I found contact info (email) for the owner of said house. type in address, go to the assessors website, look up owner/tax parcel, google name, BAM they own a local busiess. So I took a chance and emailed the lady. I just asked hey, we're building your house, by chance do you have photos of the interior you would mind sharing with me. This really could have gong 50/50. She could have thought I was psycho, I admitted to driving by her house, and slapped a restraining order on me OR she would say no problem. Well it turned out even better, she invited me over for a tour! So now I'm thinking, what if she's a psycho?! Anyways, I went Wednesday night after work. Looked through it, took a few photos and left. I hated it. Yes, i just said that. I hated the house that we have been planning on building the last 7 months.

AREA OF HATE. STAIRS AND WALL.

All you can see when coming in the front door is

a wall of stairs. Then you jog right, and walk

down a narrow space between the stairs and a wall.

Just not for me.

So I made the drive home and told kyle my concerns. But I didn't quite admit yet that I hated it. I thought, sleep on it, you might change your mind. Well morning came...and I had thought all night about it. That house was not my dream house. So I tell Kyle, and frankly I felt just sick. Here we've sold our house, getting permits, etc and I have just put a screeching halt to everything. Kyle was supportive as always. He said if there was a time to change our minds, now is it. We haven't submitted building permits and we haven't had to pay the engineer to bring those plans to code. So no money lost.

I came home Thursday after spending most of the day on the computer searching and searching and searching for house plans. I found 3 that I really liked. And they had interior pictures so I could really visualize the space. Well, there were things Kyle didn't like, and there were things my MIL didn't like. Yes my MIL has an opinion. Everyone runs everything by her. Doesn't matter if you don't, she'll tell you anyways. So just save yourself the trouble and have her involved from the begining. And honestly, she usually has some really good ideas. Sometimes she overwhelms and confuses the shit out of me. But we work it out. Anyway, so no one loved any of the plans as much as me. Everyone was a little short, and well I was just super sensitive about the whole thing.

To top it off, while we're looking at plans, talking/arguing, Miss Ellie comes to the back patio door covered in mud from the bay. She states she "fell down", I call bullshit. They had a mud fight. I am already upset, and well this is just icing. I tell both kiddos to get to the front yard, I'm grabbing the hose. Yes, I sprayed my kids down with cold water from the hose. And well, I thought this will teach them not to get into the mud. But no, they loved it and were laughing the whole time. Ugh, cannot win. Still, they then got put into the showers and then PJs. Luckily the clock struck 6PM and I got to escape to book club.

I whined to my girlfriends over glasses of wine. And they all pitched in to think of a solution. That's what they do. So I'm feeling much calmer now. I walk into the door after being gone 3 hours, and Kyle and his mom have drawn up a whole new floor plan. WE ALL LIKE IT. its a miracle. I thought it was really nice. They heard what it was I hated about the original. And what I was wanting out of a new plan, and they created it. And now I'm fairly confident we will truly have the most amazing house.

So Friday, I whipped over to Best Buy and bought the HGTV design software (of course, HGTV is the king of all things design). I spent the whole weekend designing the layout out the plan so we can send the CAD file to the engineer. Kyle has to work on the roof layout, which is tricky and not my area. Hopefully by the end of this week we will be almost back to where we were.

The weekend ended nicely with amazing weather and a friends 50th bday. My siblings were able to join me for the night, which is rare we all 4 are ever available at the same time. I do have other family besides the Camuses, and occasionaly I hang out with them too :-)