catchup

Ok, so as of today we are a week or two away from starting actual construction on the house.  To give you some background I'm going to write a few posts about how we got to this point.  I won't go into details about the years daydreaming and thinking about, what was back then, just an idea of a house (although you should get plenty of insight along the way).  Instead I will start with our first hurdle, where to put the house.  There were many factors to consider and, in many ways, we felt this was the most difficult and important decision of the process.  Again, these are not in order of importance.  First, we needed a place that would let us build a modern custom residential home.  There are very few places in the city of San Antonio that I would consider suitable areas that don't have a strict homeowners association, specific builders, or strict building restrictions.  We had lived near the downtown area for several years and wanted to move away from the transitional up and coming areas surrounding it.  The areas around downtown San Antonio area have seen a bit of a "renaissance" in the last few years which meant that real estate prices skyrocketed as well.  Most of what you get there are fixer uppers anyway and we wanted a new build.  Second, we wanted a neighborhood without "neighbors".  We've had enough "assholes next door", late night barking dogs, and "why do they always park in front of our house" to know that we needed a serious buffer for the home we planned to never sell.  You can see how difficult this was becoming.  A good neighborhood that would let us build a modern home with serious distance from surrounding neighbors that was in the city limits.  A tall order to say the least but that wasn't the end of our wish list.  Third, it had to be the right price.  Fourth, it had to have a good public school option.  Fifth, it had to have some charm.  We didn't want to be in a place that had no soul and was completely cookie cutter.  Sixth, we were really hoping to build this thing on the most solid ground possible, like solid rock.  We had had enough foundation problems in our previous house and never wanted to deal with that again.  Some of the other things we hoped for were good highway access, a neighborhood pool, nearby parks, distance from any huge apartment communities,  and a place with decent proximity to everyday shopping.  So this is the part of the story where the seemingly impossible task turns the corner, the clouds part, the light peaks through, and the music cues at just the right moment.  About 14 years ago a friend of mine invited me to play some paintball with some guys.  He gave me directions to some remote neighborhood on the northwest side of San Antonio near UTSA that was mostly large lots of juniper ashe and live oaks with a few homes here and there.  It was only three random hours of my life but for some reason I always remembered the area.  So fast forward to 2012 which was just about the time we were really pushing the idea of moving and making this house happen.  We had done a great deal of driving  over several months through random parts of the city in search of our future homestead when we decided to drive through the former paintball battleground.  It was pretty instantaneous when we laid eyes on the property.  Two acres of perfect untouched hill country in the city limits with a for sale sign in the very front.  The first call we made was to find out the price and turned out it was right!  The second phone call, a couple of days later, was to make an offer and turned out it was...............not right :(  Someone had apparently put in an offer between our first and second phone call.  A big disappointment to say the least.  But we at least felt like we had found the right neighborhood, which was no small thing.  So i'll ration out the suspense and fast forward this story.  A month or two later a second "perfect" lot came on the market and a certain cool couple put up an immediate bid and received an almost immediate acceptance.  To make the deal even sweeter the appraisal came in $11,000 under asking price and our amazing realtor/friend, Yvonne, made the deal happen at appraisal price.   I've included a few photos of the property below so you can "get to know" the land before things really get going.  I've already gone on too long but i'll just add one more thing.  Building this house has become more than just about the construction.  This is really about putting your money where your mouth is and doing something you actually believe in.  In regards to location, we really reject the notion that your physical location embodies who you are.  It's such a simple way of thinking.  Living in a "cool" downtown loft doesn't make you outgoing or interesting and living in an outer suburb gated community doesn't make you a bland uncultured person.  We really want take this chance and make this home a real reflection of who we are and not the other way around.  In the end it's just a house but that doesn't mean it can't blur the lines a bit between form and function.............