Back when my husband and I first got married, we were young and just starting out in life. We had built our very first home, a two-bedroom ranch, our starter home. We knew we did not want to stay there forever, but it was a good home to start with, since it was just the two of us, at that time. We wanted to pay toward a mortgage instead of paying rent to someone else.
While we lived in our starter home, we found our dream property. A piece of property with stone walls, apple trees and room to grow our family. We purchase our land and paid payments until we could sell our first home and pay off our land, thereby establishing equity in our property before we began to build our dream home, our log cabin in the woods.
We realized our dream by beginning with a plan.
Step one was to find our perfect piece of property. A piece of property with character. Location was important too. We found a piece with just over 5 acres of land, in a good school district and close to town, old stone walls and several apple trees were already in residence there. Step one to our dream home was accomplished. Then we started to imagine what we wanted to build.
Step two was beginning the design process. We sat down and discussed the things that were important to each of us. We made a list of our ideas: garage, bathrooms, kitchen layout, closets, and laundry room. With list in hand, we started to incorporate our ideas into our design and our new home started to take shape. We changed our thoughts and ideas several times taking into consideration overall living space and cost-effectiveness. We needed to design a home that fit our lives in the present but would also be able to meet our needs as our family grew. We began with a ranch design log home and ended up with a cape style log home, but it had everything that we wanted, it was our new home. Step two to our dream home was now accomplished.
Step three was to secure financing. This step became easier because we had already paid off our land from the sale of our first home and years of making payments on the land. We had equity toward our new home, which helped things immensely. With our new home design in hand, we went to the bank. After getting our bank approval, we could begin building our new log home. While building our new home, we rented a home nearby until our home was completed. After about eight months of construction (it was a long winter), we were finally able to move into our dream home.
Step four was to live the dream. It’s now been 22 years since we first built our log cabin in the woods. Our house is now a home as we filled our home with the memories of our children being born and growing up within these walls. So many stories and so many memories. We can see now that we realized our dream. A house is a house, but a home is where you grow your memories.
I am Patti Martell and this is our story and this is our home. We can help you realize your dreams too. At Martell Home Builders, Inc., we have land available or can help you locate the perfect piece of property, we can help you design a home that suits your needs and visions. We can also help you to secure financing. Give us a call and we can help you with all of the steps to realizing your own dream.
Contact Martell Builders for more information, click here or call (845) 856-7951.