The Story

September 2010. My girlfriend and I went to Babette's for dinner. We had talked about it forever since neither of us had been. The food was good; the wine was good; the restaurant was great. After dinner, we took a stroll through Freedom Park where we met. Fifteen minutes into our walk we reached a special spot where I took a little something out of my pocket, got on one knee, and then became the luckiest guy in the world when my girlfriend accepted my marriage proposal. We're both pretty excited!

It wasn't but maybe three weeks into our engagement when I realized we should probably start looking for a new place to live. We both live in one bedroom condos in Atlanta. We both have stuff. Stuff that fits nicely in a one bedroom condo. Two sets of stuff, however, don't fit nicely into a one bedroom. So the search began.

Both of us want to live in an in-town neighborhood in Atlanta. In this market, we may actually find a good deal in one of the neighborhoods we like. So we started our search...and we found something we weren't expecting - a vacant lot in our neighborhood of choice. The price was fair, but there was no way we could afford to build a house. We balked at the idea, but it kept coming up in conversation.

Lot or no lot, we decided to engage a real estate agent to officially start our search. Enter Jonathan and Randy - our real estate "team." The four of us got together over a bottle of Malbec to discuss our search and what we wanted. The conversation started with the lot and how we wish we could build, but probably couldn't afford it. Prepared to move the conversation onto the types of houses we liked, our perceptions of construction costs in Atlanta were quickly readjusted. I had it in my had head building would cost $175 - $225 per square foot. And that was too much for the square footage we wanted. Turns out you don't have to spend that much and you can still build a pretty decent house. Two days later, on November 19th, we submitted our offer on the lot and this where our journey begins.

Our goal with this blog to not only provide ourselves with a journal of what happens, but to also allow our family and friends to follow along. We also hope to be a resource to others who might be going through the same process or are considering building. Selfishly, we're also hoping good Samaritans might provide insight when we're lost or clueless.

This may work out. It may not. I hope to be posting here for the next 9 to 12 months, but if not, c'est la vie.

I'm Chris. My fiancée is Beth. Thanks for joining us.