Getting the Hell out of Here: Part Four

"...never get involved in a land war in Asia!" 

Find Land on Which to Build

Source

After Husband and I decided that subdivision living was out and wide open spaces were in, the search for land was on. At first, I was just searching to get an idea of what the kind of land we were interested in was going to cost us. We knew we wanted 5-10 acres, ideally already cleared for building and accessible to utilities, in either Boone or Kenton County.

Yeah...

So one night when my brother-in-law was over, we were all chatting about our plans, and BIL mentioned that he, too, wanted to build his own home. He wants to open a garage and work for himself repairing cars (he's awesome at that shizz) and live in a nice apartment above his business. Well, in his beer-induced state of mind, he suggested we go in together and buy a chunk of land to share.

Don't get me wrong—I loved the idea. But I also know that some ideas sound awesome when you're drinking and then cease to sound so awesome when your brain comes back to you. So while we all agreed that that would be fabulous, I planned to drop it and let BIL off the hook easy if he changed his mind by the light of day.

Only he didn't, and I'm really glad. BIL is one of our very best friends, and the father of our nephew. We loved the idea of having our kids' cousin living part-time right next door, and sharing a property line with someone we already know we like. And with a good 7-10 acres each, we still have enough space to not feel like we're together all the time.

Anyway, that's a lot of backstory for a simple plan. We've been looking for a piece of land that suits our needs (space, location, zoning, access, etc.) and have taken a look at a few spots. We've expanded our search area a bit, too. Once we find something, we're going to go ahead and buy it before we're ready to build. That gives us time to start doing any clearing that we can do ourselves or with help from friends and to offset some of the sudden expense that goes with building a house. A likely scenario is that we'll build our house first while BIL tries to sell his, and if he needs to, he'll live in our guest suite while his place is being built. We both have small houses with some undesirable features (well, lack of features, really)  to unload, and it won't be easy, but we're committed to helping each other out.

So yeah. We're actively looking for the right piece of land at the right price so that we can custom build the homes to suit our custom-built lives. :)