Our New House Construction
John Weimer in livingroom
John Weimer & John King take a break
Floor in the loft was just finished
Kitchen coming together
When we picked the countertop color and material we thought it would look nice...
The countertops may look like granite. Really, they are a high definition formica - what a real savings on the look we were trying to achieve
Lorrie wanted a pantry and got a combination pantry and laundry room
We're still in the pantry and the washing machine is to the left
This is the front of the house - facing North Mountain
This is the deck on the back - sticks out to the right on the next picture
This is the east facing side which also faces out to North Mountain
This is my workshop on the left and the equipment barn on the right
This was taken from the west side of the house - the garden is in the lower right corner
The original farmhouse is on the right and Lorrie's brother's garden is by the small building. Our property line runs right along side of the garden and at the end of the garden the line turns left and crosses the road and thru the woods to a far property line.
We are approaching the house from the north
Well, this has been a most interesting journey for us. Lorrie and I first saw this property on Memorial weekend of 2006 and purchased the property in Nov 2006. The total property is 27.5 acres and Lorrie's brother and his wife purchased it with us. We split the property into two 13.76 acre homesteads. After working with a builder who ultimately declared bankruptcy we decided to take a different approach.
We closed the Chevy Chase chapter of our lives in 2009. We sold our home during the summer, I had already retired from the Gas Co. and in mid September Lorrie left her job with Chevy Chase Manor Care. Sarah got married at Capon Springs & Farms on October 3rd and we moved into a rental home on October 23rd. Once we got settled we started on the process of building our new home. It was important to us that we use as much local help as possible. As it turned out, our builder lives right next door.
We located house plans on the internet, which were surprisingly similar to the house we had designed while working with the other builder. With that in hand I started interviewing trades people and found 99% of our crew within 12 miles of our property. We broke ground on June 15, 2010 and moved into our new home on May 6, 2011. I was the general contractor on the project which I know saved us a lot o money. Now, how is that for a leap of faith? I believe all of the people that worked on our house did a tremendous job for us and I feel confident in recommending them to anyone.
As I said, this has been an interesting journey as we had never done anything quite like this. You learn a lot being your own contractor. The entire process went very smoothly for which we are gratefull. And now, you know the rest of the story....
