House Building Experience

Most of my friends know that my husband and I have been building a house since 3 months after our wedding last year. The house we currently live in is on the market (and has been for 8 months... ugh!). It's a gorgeous house and we'll be sad to leave it behind. :( The thing that irritates me the MOST about it is that the architectural appeal, colors, and landscaping is awesome... yet, everyone is "interested" and never make an offer. We have reduced the asking price of our home 3 times in that amount of time. Talk about complete frustration! We are clean freaks and anyone would be lucky to live in this home... Okay, so back to the house building. We have had every problem you could POSSIBLY imagine with every sub-contractor we have hired. It just really amazes me how lazy workers are these days... and most of them are dishonest. Throughout the process we have hired one sub-contractor to fix another sub-contractor's mistakes. Paying double for everything is NO CUP OF TEA, my friends! I could go on and on about lazy, overpaid sub-contractors, but I'll stop there. Just know that we have EXCEEDED out budget by FAR and have gotten our heads ripped off along the way. :) But, now that we are getting ready to move in (in about a week) and everything is how it is supposed to be, I can honestly say that it is close to my dream home and I love it!! Everything in our home is custom... all hand-selected by none other than ME, MYSELF and I... oh, Kevin helped a little in the designing process... mainly everything outside... landscaping, patios, sunrooms, sidewalks, retaining walls, rocks/colors, etc. Good job, honey! One thing I know for sure... it is true when they say to NOT jump into a BIG project (especially building a home) right after getting married, because it will test your marriage (like you could never imagine) and really put a strain on your relationship. We discovered the flaws in one another and realized that NO MARRIAGE is perfect, but it's how you balance the marriage that makes it fall in place and feel comfortable!! Those of you that haven't experienced this, yet... I challange you to build a house... and you'll start to see your relationship gradually change (not in a bad way... just discovering your expectations for one another and eachother's flaws)! Kevin and I didn't discover this until almost 5 years being together and 1-year being married. :) I'm glad we did, though... because now we have no surprises and our marriage has strengthened. To all my friends and family that are living in a fantasy world... it's nice to day dream, but realize that a marriage is sacred and something that the two of you have to work on every day of your lives for the rest of your lives!! But, it is all SO worth it! I'll keep you posted on the house... can't wait to move in and utilize everything we've bought for the house! Yippee!!