How my home came to be..........

Good morning. I had started this post some time ago, and it was left in my draftbox to finish at a later date. That date is today:) Over the two years are so (still cannot believe it)! since I have started blogging, I have had many many inquires ranging from where my home is, to whether its a new or old house (taken as the highest compliment) to how long it took, what was here before, etc........I try to answer when I can but sometimes I get backlogged and am sure I have missed a few emails here and there. So finally a post to answer most of your questions and a quick speedy tour in how we got  to building our home..........

• IS THE HOUSE OLD OR NEW? Brand new, as in now about a year and change old.  We built this house to look old, however so to not be sure confirms that we succeeded in our mission!
• WHAT IS THE MATERIAL USED? It is handrolled brick and limestone details with a slate roof
• WAS THERE A HOUSE ON THE PROPERTY PRIOR? Yes, there was! In fact, ironically when we bought this we bought it with the only intention of doing a major renovation to that house, it was a beautiful, charming home with a very unusual "butterfly" layout. We spent about 5 months at the drafting board with my architect but in the end, based up on our needs, some conditions of thouse, it was agreed upon by the engineer, builder and architect that to get what we were after, we ideally had to start from scratch. It was bittersweet to see it go.
• HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO BUILD? From the first time we put pen to paper, to when we moved it was just around 4 years.
• WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN? No way! Did it once before, on a smaller scale and this time we really fulfilled every one of our dreams in building...so next time we move it will be to "size down".

I am enclosing a few pictures of our original house, then the house that was here, then pictures of in progress and current pictures.

So once upon a time we built this beautiful Georgian home, it was a really wonderful home and a great place to raise our then young kids in....lots of good memories! Though we loved this house there were  few things we didn't do that we both (husband more than myself) hopeed to do one day.......

I so loved my old bedroom........hope to recreate a similar feel in my new house

And loved my kitchen too...many good memories in there!

And my bathroom was a wonderful oasis.....

I can think of so many great times that we had and celebrated in my old dining room!

Fun walking down memory lane, and that up there is Mr. Teddy doing what he does best, chillin....


After living there for seven years, my husband got the itch to build again, better that the seven year itch happened with our house and not each other lol......so we casually started looking for an opportunity. Upon driving up this snowy driveway we both got that feeling that we had found it........

This charming home had been built around 1925......

A charmer (this was taken construction day) so it was  mess

Teddy had to do his own inspection...of course!

We worked for six tireless months on figuring out a way to remodel/restore and add on to this home. It was proving to be incredibly challenging because the home was done in a "butterfly" floor plan which made things rather difficult

So...... after 6 months at the drawing board with our architect and  builders, it was unanimous that this house as charming as it was would not work in meeting our goals of what we wanted in the renovation/restoration. It was a difficult floorplan to work with, a "butterfly plan" which made it next to impossible to get all the things we wanted. So it was with some sadness that the decision was unanimous and finally made to tear it down and rebuild. Not at all what we had in mind! Building was never ever part of the game plan, maybe a minor renovation or restoration, yes but a huge build?  But it was at that point the next logical step.....

Loved the brick wall and the beautiful roofline

This was my favorite angle

Coming down one day in late summer.........

I captured the teardown on video but had uploaded it online and somehow it was erased. Just as well, it was  kind of hard to watch and it was time to close that chapter and start anew!

 And then over the next four years ( four looooooooooong excruciating years) our house came to be but only after batallions of workers, countless piles of supplies, thousands of nails, hundreds of hours of appointments with our builder and architects, miles of wood flooring, endless number of meetings, palette after palette of marble tiles, acres of slate roofing, pages and pages of plans, countless decision making sessions, battalions of crews, endless and long days, much sweat, blood and tears, stress to last a lifetime walked through that door and then and only then was it a home!

And lets not even talk about the arguments, screaming matches, tears and calories consumed as result.....lets not go there:)

 

So that my dear readers is in a nutshell what transformed between living in our original home to where we are today! A speedy tour through all the stages. Today, I know we made the right decision but its daunting when you are going through it......you second guess yourself, wonder if you should have ever moved to begin with, was tearing down the right thing,etc.....but now that we are in our beautiful home, the answer is a resounding yes!

Many thanks for stopping in and wishing you all a wonderful day and end to your week! Enjoy your weekend.....and remember only 121 shopping days left till Christmas, yikes!!


If you missed seeing 16 gorgeous bedrooms in yesterdays Which would you choose, click here.