The Beginnings

Homebuilding was never a dream of mine, but it has long been a dream of my husband's and when I got him I got his dreams, too.  And I bought in.  If you could see the stacks of idea magazines and books that have accumulated!  Luckily, he just wants to be the builder...I get to be the decorator - and apprentice builder.  After much patience, planning and praying it began.

Three years ago we bought our piece of Almost Heaven WV!  It is exactly big enough.  We bought this piece because it has big rocks in the woods that I can sit on (eventually) to watch the sunsets.  Just buying the property, which is named, and forever after shall be called, Shangri La Ti Da, was an adventure.  I finally tracked the seller down on his tractor, mowing the fields in the neighborhood that is now mine.  There were no homes there yet....now there are 8 and we will make 9 with perhaps 2 more to come.  Shortly there after we tracked him down again and signed some important papers.

For two years we paid for Shangri La Ti Da and then last year we broke ground...I didn't want to break it until it was paid for! 

A good friend and architect took our dreams and put them into blueprints.  Starts to feel really real after that.
We got the footers in and the slab poured.  Do you know how heavy cinder blocks are?  And how hard they are on gloves??

They got moved more than once in and out of those footers...or rather, these footers...

Big truck...BIG TRUCK,

which was the reason we had to build a really nice road down to our homebuilding site.

Let the pouring begin!  And they only collapsed one small section of the wall.

When we poured the slab we had to put these metal grids in for ... oh, stability or something.  (I hope you aren't expecting to get "How To" lessons from this journey.)  Anyway, there they were and there the flower was and aren't they lovely?

Here's the slab...

... waiting for floors and walls and dreams and songs and crafting and love

and the making of a Home...a Home where the heart is.

I am counting on still having time to create, as that is my longtime dream.  The new home will have a craft studio - something I never thought to dream of, even when I was sitting on the floor sewing on the sewing machine and using my knee to press the go pedal or sleeping on only half of the bed because the rest was covered with the latest project of eating standing up instead of cleaning the craftiness off the table.

Here are a couple of recent creations.   I made a necklace to go with my "graduation" dress.

I made a felt replica of the logo for our local river restoration organization.  It will be a gift for someone who is retiring.  It was a commission...gotta love those now that I am retired!

Original...

...and replica.

So, friends, I hope you will join me on this newest adventure and chime in often.  OK?

We have ordered boards and such to begin...delivery projected for tomorrow or Monday....