This is the day our dream was awakened, after laying dormant for several months. All my life, I have ached for a cute little home to call my own. When my husband Rex and I finally were able to graduate from being renters to owners in 1992, it was not what I had in mind to say the least: 10 acres of rural acreage south of Port Orchard, Washington (the original game plan was to live in Seattle, but that became financially infeasible) and a small, used, 12 x 56' singlewide mobile built in 1973 which had definitely seen better days. This mobile was intended as a temp residence that would need to last only till we were able to build our log cabin in the woods. For reasons I won't detail here, we were never able to make that happen and 13-1/2 years later, here I still sit in the same mobile which has gone from slightly rundown to barely liveable. I go into a bit of detail on a few of the things that are wrong with this dump, I mean "home" on my My Dream 1 page, so I won't repeat those here. But suffice it to say it has been inadequate both sizewise and condition-wise from the beginning, and I have never felt like a "homeowner" - and have continued to ache for the day I could have a nice little home to live in and not have to be ashamed of.
In late 2004, circumstances arose that made it finally, FINALLY appear possible to vastly improve our living conditions. The following February, we visited a home builder that Rex had become familiar with through his days as a real estate agent. We had looked over their web site and selected a floor plan - a palacial 2-1/2 times bigger than we have had for 13+years - that we agreed would work out great for us. We visited the model home and fell in love with it. We picked out the options we wanted and signed the papers. The home was supposed to be built by June, provided things went well with the unfamiliar lender that the builder was contracted with. And that's where things stalled. The contract ran out and things stayed stalled - till today. I won't go into what jump-started the process again or how that happened, only that it did happen. We realized we would need to go to Plan B and that this could turn out even better than Plan A. Namely, it looks like we will be going with a new mobile as opposed to a stick-built. We won't have the step-by-step, dramatic process of watching the house gradually emerging before our eyes. Instead, it will be moved to our acreage in one piece and then gradually tweaked/improved as finances permit. But for impatient me, who wanted the home to be ready yesterday, this could even be better.
For those who don't like mobiles, I guess you don't have to read on. But all I know is, we visited a local manufactured home dealer today and saw some truly beautiful models. One model in particular had the type of huge kitchen I have always longed for and a walk-in closet almost big enough to be a bedroom. It will be difficult to find something we like even better, but a red flag arose when the rep admitted he would not work with the lender we want to use. But we plan to visit at least a couple more builders to compare what they have to offer and then quickly make our decision. I do feel that in the long run, this will be a better choice than the home we originally selected which, though it had an interior I loved, looked very "boxy" on the outside. Chapter 2 of Plan B coming soon! (By the way, if you want to read the home planning chronicle I originally started with details of the home we originally picked, go here. I will leave that page intact, with a link to the blog you are reading now which is replacing it.)
