Building on a Dream

Since I really don't know what to post in this blog, I thought I would start out by pulling together the photos of the process of building my house. For those of you who don't know me, I have owned a 16 acre piece of land for about 20 years. My plan has always been to build a house on it, but it took about 18 years to be in a position to begin this dream. Even then I knew that to get the house I wanted I would have to do a lot of the work myself. I just didn't realize what I was getting into.

To learn the process of building, I started volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. At the same time I started looking at house plan books and talking to a friend about the costs of building.

This photo was taken during my first hour on a Habitat job site in September 2004, so it is truly the beginning of my homebuilding experiences. It isn't the greatest, because it was scanned from the newspaper, but it's all I have.

The man in the photo is Terry. He works for Habitat and without his help and friendship, I could never have finished this project. Of course he won't admit just how insane he thought I was when I started, and now he'll never let me forget just how stubborn he thinks (knows) I am.