8 year dream comes true!

October 26, 2005

The long, but very fun, road from moving out of our
rental house in DC into an RV to finally finding the location and being
able to build our dream house is complete! We have not only settled on
the exact design of the house, but the manufacturer and the location we
are going to put it, and more.

We are building a Heritage Log Home and the model is
called the “Heritage”. http://www.heritagelog.com/default.aspx?articleID=3724
. We looked for five years at log home models and after seeing dozens
of them, we found the Heritage homes to be the best built, best layouts,
and best service of any of the companies we looked at. The bonus for us
is that it is in TN. They sell their homes worldwide, but it is quite
nice to be so close. (we have been there more than 10 times already).

The last time we went to their sales office near Knoxville
we brought our checkbook and put a deposit down on the package we want!
So it is official, we are now actually building our house!

Emily gets the master bedroom on the second floor,
and Dane gets the bedroom with the little cubby hole spot in it. Kristine
and I get a master bedroom on the first floor. A beautiful kitchen and
informal dinning room all visible from the great room with floor to roof
windows. A wrap around porch and a 16” by 24” deck on the
back of the porch, with French doors going out from the great room.

Finished basement will include a walk in part on the
right side of the house where I pull the truck up to when we finish paddling
and walk straight into the kayakers laundry room. Lots of room to dry
gear, as well as a washer and dryer. A workout room with a Paddle Station,
etc., a home theater, and a guest bedroom, and a normal laundry room all
make up the basement.

Keith, a local friend just scoped out our driveway
and exact house placement. Looking good! Ronnie, the local basement, driveway
expert will hopefully be able to get started right away on that part.
I am guessing that we will break ground in less than two weeks, sweet!

Our hope is to have it done by next August so that
it will be ready for the World Cup finals next September in Rock Island.

Here are a few photos:

EJ 🙂