Part II

So, we're in the car and I am crying huge alligator tears. My hubs turns to me and says, "I want to build the house instead. Will you be OK with that?" I mulled it over for a moment, having been through two previous house building experiences, one when my parents built when I was 14 and one at 21 with my high school sweetheart when we decided to move in together and see if things were for real...obviously they weren't, and knowing that it is very stressful. I agreed and so began the most stressful 11 months of our marriage - considering we'd only been married three at the time.

We began looking for a place to rent, finally settling on a little house in S. Minneapolis. This is a whole other story, but I ended up bawling through the entire move once I realized that the people who owned the house were less than great housekeepers. We're talking having to run the self clean cycle on the oven 3 times just to get it clean. A word of advice when renting - open drawers, open appliances, really look at the floors. Just because they guy who owns the house is a lawyer with a skinny wife and little girl, doesn't mean that they know how to use a broom or a mop or press that little button on your oven that says self clean for that matter. Enough of that...

In our previous home shopping excursions we came across two homes for sale as tear down re-builds or remodel situations on this tiny little cul-de-sac, right in the neighborhood we wanted to be in. One of the lots was already contracted with another builder, meaning that we would have to build with them if we bought the lot. We wanted to build our house with our builder so the other lot, which was the better choice anyway, became our target. We did a "showing" to look at the property (picture above right) and made an offer to begin negotiations. While this was happening, we proceeded to begin searching for a construction loan, which are terribly hard to get in this market. The first broker screwed us over big time as he was in transition to a new company and delayed our loan to try to bring it to his new employer. We found another lender, with better terms and everything was set, or so we thought. A second deadline was laid out and the sellers, who ended up being really great, but were feeling pressure from the other side since they had purchased a new home once the deal supposedly closed, basically said we needed to meet that deadline or the deal was off. So. Much. Stress. Twelve hours before we were supposed to close, the lender called us and said we needed more money. A lot more money. Basically we needed to buy the property outright in order to get a construction loan to build on the site. My husband was able to scrape the money together, while his pregnant wife cried and cried...it was all just so much to handle and I couldn't imagine having to live in the now cleaned, but once was dirty rental house.

The closing took 4 hours, but finally, finally happened and we were the proud owners of a tiny little house that we were about to tear down. We had a building reuse it organization come and strip out what they could take. And we proceeded to have the house demolished. I felt a little guilty about razing the home, knowing that in other countries who live in extreme poverty that would consider that home a wonderful place to live. We did try to have the house moved, but it was one foot too large. A friend of mine told me to get over my guilt and so I did. Photos of the demolished house below:

The demolition took place on September 11, 2009 - kind of an icky day for a demolition. I was not quite 4 months pregnant at the time. My belly was starting to swell and the process of building our dream house was just getting started....

The Momma Jomma Family Built a House and a Baby in the Same Year

I'm going to start a new series on the year that we just experienced. A word of advice to those thinking of taking on building a house while pregnant and then caring for a newborn...DON'T DO IT! Seriously, it is too much craziness at one time.

Our beloved condo

So, the story begins as we are planning our wedding during a short, 5 month engagement. My hubs is 7.5 years older than me, so he was ready to start trying to make some babies once we tied the knot. Having had baby fever for a couple of years, I was ready too. Either way, we lived in a hip loft in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. Two bedrooms, two baths and 1700 square feet on the top floor with a view of the skyline. We LOVED it! But, with the second bedroom tricked out as a workout room and our storage areas filled to the brim, we realized that having a baby in the space would be challenging. We both knew it was time to start thinking about where we wanted to raise our kids and started browsing listings in a suburb of Minneapolis that is minutes to the city and has some of the top rated schools in the country...yes I said country. While we'd probably not be able to sell the condo in a way that would result in a huge profit (hello..housing market collapse) we also knew that we'd be able to buy our forever house at a great price and so taking the hit would be totally worth it. We both hate moving and vowed that we'd purchase a home that our family could grow into in an area that we loved where we'd stay put until we retire. My husband had this childhood, I on the other hand, went to five different schools from K - 12 and wanted a different childhood for my babies. The suburb of Minneapolis that we now live in and were at the time shopping for houses in, has this cool little area that is a walkable neighborhood with shops, and restaurants. It's like being in the city, in the suburbs. So, with target neighborhood in hand, we began our search, feeling out the market and seeing what we could get in our budget.

We browsed and browsed, planned our wedding and decided that while we were on our honeymoon, we'd have a couple of settling cracks repaired in the condo and start getting things ready to list the place. When we returned from our fabulous, fabulous Hawaiian honeymoon, we got serious, had a stager come through, and implemented her suggestions.

One Sunday, just before we listed the condo, we walked through a new construction home about 10 blocks from where we really wanted to be and fell in love. I mean IN - Love. It was perfect and I instantly had visions of my babies running around and baking cookies with me at the huge center island in the kitchen. The location was poopy however, and the backyard faced a busy street causing some noise. The house was priced to sell and after viewing about 20 other properties, we couldn't get it out of our minds. One day over a carafe of delicious white wine sangria from this great little bistro called Lucia's in Minneapolis, we talked about the house and my husband mentioned maybe wanting to build the same house, with many of the same finishes on a different site. I raised my glass, and told him that if I could have that house, I was in like flynn. While all this was going on, we found out that we were going to become a three person wolf pack (love The Hangover), Baby K had implanted and was no longer a zygote AND our condo sold in only three weeks and two showings.

The house that stole our hearts

We were about to be homeless and gestating...ishy combo in my opinion. We went back to the house to make an offer because it seemed to be the best decision, but it was raining that day, and my husband sat at the staged kitchen table and listened to the cars whiz by, even louder with the wet street, and said he just couldn't do it. He wouldn't be happy there with the noise. Our realtor was there and we weren't ready to talk about the pregnancy yet since it was still early and I did my best to not have a Sicilian/pregnancy hormone meltdown in front of him, but when we got in the car the tears started to flow and I begged my husband to make a decision - any decision. I just needed to know what was going to happen. Too much up in the air and a baby on the way is a deadly combo for a girl who doesn't like to feel unsettled.

To be continued.....

Nothing Special

There are some days of no particular significance that you just don't want to end. Days where you just went about your life, loving your husband, showering your baby girl with kisses and basking in her smiles. Days where you unpack your kitchen slowly, thinking of all the yummy meals that you'll make, all the cookies you'll bake and the holidays meals you'll prepare with family members milling about. Days where you let your sweet baby fall asleep in your arms instead of her bassinet because you just don't want to be away from her and someday she'll be too big to cradle this way. And you look down at her with her long eye lashes and chubby cheeks while listening to your husband snore softly and you simply have no idea how you got so lucky to be this man's wife and this child's mother.