Open Doors (Builder Plans!)

We made it! Sometimes I look back and question how, but here we sit under contract simply waiting for the weather to be decent enough to prepare our land for our barndo. I will share the plans in this post, but first, I wanted to share a bit about how we got here. We have seen God’s hand in so many ways in this process. We started out getting a recommendation for a builder from one of our home church families (shout out to the Beattys). They recently built a large pole barn structure on their property for home school co-op, among other things. They referred us to Justin from American Barn and Home. Working with Justin has been amazing. We started out sending him our graph paper sketches, and he developed plans for our dream home. It was perfect and very, very spacious. Once we locked in a floor plan, he got to work, getting us a full scope of the building costs. Unfortunately, it was almost double what we wanted to spend.

With building costs so high, we went back to the drawing board and tried to downsize. Justin gave us a second option for our first plans scaled down. Obviously, the floor plan had to change a bit to get everything in. We weren’t nearly as excited about the second option. So we decided to sit with both options and pray about what we should do. It was obvious we still both loved the first set of plans that were over budget. Eric and I are both asking ourselves, is it too big? Do we even deserve such a large house? Was it necessary? At this point, we had already handed over all our documentation to the bank, not even knowing where we would land for financing. We let our doubts get us down a bit. The easiest option was just to stay in a camper forever. Ha!

Eric felt very strongly that we were supposed to build the first set of plans. Somehow, someway, God would make it all work out… you know… as He does. He worked with Justin on adjusting certain aspects of our original plans to cut costs. The biggest cost-cutting was simply putting in a ton of sweat equity. Meanwhile, we went to meet with Dan at our local bank. Dan was also highly recommended to us by multiple people. He had been working through a game plan for financing. We had money from the house flip and still some outstanding debt I was eager to pay off. Dan came up with a plan for the most efficient way to spend our cash on hand to make financing work. When Eric and I met at the bank that morning to meet with him, we admittedly prepared for the worst. To our pleasant surprise, Dan was able to work with us to get what financing we needed. It was easy. It was quite literally the easiest financing for anything we have ever dealt with. Not to mention, Dan was so sweet. God is definitely putting us with the best people right now. After going back and with Justin for a bit with real numbers, we finalized plans and bids. We are under contract and ready to roll! You know, once the Illinois spring snow is done.

Needless to say, so many doors have been opened so easily through just these first initial steps, and we are confident we are on the right track. I know I was personally praying that if we were in over our heads or not in line with God’s plans for this that He slam some doors shut. The exact opposite has been our reality. Sure, it is extremely exciting to see our plans and hard work paying off, but still scary. There is a lot of money involved and a ton of details we have yet to jump into to but we are moving confidently with our original plans, knowing God provides where He guides. There will be a lot of work on our end. To get our plans from paper to reality, we are taking on the challenge of doing ALL the work outside of shell construction, concrete, and rough framework. Thats right… mama is going to be finishing drywall, hanging tile, building furniture, and painting all the things. Thank God Eric is so handy!! We will surely have lots of building content on our hands.

So without further ado, I present to you, the Kern Bardominium.

PS. Our master bedroom is more square footage than our entire camper.