How to Build a House in 7,612 Easy Steps

Almost exactly one year ago Tim and I moved to Georgia to build our own house. When we arrived, the land we purchased looked like this:

Now, it looks just like this:

Not bad, right? Although Tim and I both had very little experience with building a home (and by very little, I do mean NONE).

I thought it might be interesting to see the various steps we went through over the last 12 months to build our dream home. Keep in mind that this post doesn't even BEGIN to cover it all. If you are super interested in this kind of thing, check out Tim's blog for more details.

First up - excavating the house site, getting rid of the brush and creating the house pad where we wanted to build.

 

Next, we plotted out the area for the foundation base on hubby's design for the house. It rained right before we laid the concrete, which meant an emergency shoveling session to clear out the space. The next day the cement was put down. 

 

Once the foundation was set, we got to the good stuff. The house was built with custom made and pre-built panels. Kind of like giant pieces of Lego. Both are equally challenging to me. 

 

The interior framing was next. Once it was finished we could begin to put on the roof panels, which again were pre-made to fit the design of the home and filled with soy foam insulation. 

 

After the roof was on, it was time to have the walls insulated one more time to make it an energy efficient as possible. Drywall went up and Tim and I spend a LONG time installing the cedar siding around the entire house. 

 

Along the way we dug a well, got electricity to the land and developed the sewage system. Thankfully we also got to move to the interior. Hubby spent days and days tiling the floors and laying down the bamboo floors in the other rooms. This is the part where I started working full time and did less and less with the house, while hubby took on more. 

Multiple trips to Ikea meant he could tackle the kitchen, turning this:

 

Into this:

 

And there you have it! So easy, right? All it takes is 12 months and your entire life savings. Nothin'. 

Would anyone be interested in a house tour of the completed space? I'm debating whether that's weird (my bed! my chair! my tv!) or awesome. Let me know!

Have you ever tackled a home build or remodel in the past? Do you ever want to in the future?

Obviously this was a first. I'll be honest and say I have no desire to do it again. Hubby, on the other hand, would love it. I bet if we had tons and tons of moolah he would want to do it all over again somewhere else.