Building Our Custom Home – Part I – Why?

We bought our first home in 2000, the year our first son was born. Even as we moved into the house we knew we wouldn’t be there for long. There was nothing wrong with the house, we just felt that we would find something more “us” later.
So another son and three years later, I set out looking at homes. There was no hurry on our part, and I could take my time to look. After living in our home for three years I had a better idea of what I wanted in the new home. Three things that bothered me in our home were – tiny entry and hallway, non-existent mudroom, and small closets in the master bedroom.
The tiny entry and hallway made it difficult for more than 2 people to stand there, so if you had to open the door for guests you could only let in one at a time and if that involved taking off a jacket – fuggetaboutit. Now my kids were still little then, but there was hardly room to even put some hooks up for their jackets or a boot tray to set their dirty shoes on. It made it difficult to keep the carpet clean, because we usually ended up in the house to get our jackets and boots off in the winter. Not to mention my husband would walk into the house, sit on the couch to take his shoes off. So you see, it was hard to keep that outside dirt (and it can get real messy in a rain or winter) off the carpet. Now I don’t have many clothes, but still there is the winter and summer to consider. It was difficult to fit all my clothes in the closet. Not to mention, there was no closet organizer in there, just a shelf and hanging bar. I installed closet organizers and that helped, but was still insufficient space. Before you get the idea that I only sought grand spaces, let me tell you, our master bath only had a shower in it and it was plenty fine with me. Our bedrooms were small and that was fine with me too.
Our house also had some wonderful qualities that I knew we may not be able to duplicate. We lived on a cul-de-sac which meant less traffic. We were lucky and had many kids come over to our cul-de-sac to play and it felt very lively and enjoyable to my little ones too. We had a pie shaped lot as we were at top of the cul-de-sac and so did the house behind us. So we had an unusually long distance between our houses in the back. Not to mention the house behind us had planted a forest of trees, so we always felt a great sense of privacy. Although I thought it was excessive, we had a living and family rooms at opposite ends and sides of the house. Depending on the time of the day, the living room felt wonderful in the morning light and the family room was just fine even in the evenings. Maybe because the living room was empty but for a couple of sofas and coffee table the kids didn’t spend much time in there, which also made it attractive to sit and find some quiet time.
Anyhow, back to the house hunting. I started out by telling our agent that we wanted to buy a house about $400k. She started showing me some homes that were pretty close to the size and style of our home and with the same drawbacks. So I upped the budget and said how about $500k. The houses got bigger, there were walk-in closets in the master bedrooms, entry ways also started getting grander and wider, but the mudroom still continued to be non-existent. So we upped the budget again to $600k, I finally walked through a home that was 6000 sq ft, it had two sets of staircases, the main staircase from the front foyer and another back staircase from the kitchen. The finished basement had a sauna room, a wine cellar and a family room big enough to hold a mini-bar, pool table and a TV area. After all this, the house still barely spared 50 sq ft towards the mudroom!
So I said, this is nuts, I don’t want such a big house, I just want a house with a mudroom. That is what my mantra became at that time. And so we decided to build a house. Now we had to find a lot…

Copyright Kalpana Kanwar August 2009