Bought land 2012 – $185,000 – (£115625 exchange rate of 1.60)
Rick and I had long shared a dream of building our own house. In 2012 we started that journey. We chose Washington State because it was close to where Rick’s mum lived. But this area, near the Columbia Gorge, is gorgeous. The land also contained a 1972 and a 1971 manufactured houses, a huge barn and workshop and a chicken coup!
We returned to England and prepared for the big move, which happened 3 years later in 2015. In the meantime, we rented out the manufactured home which helped offset some of the costs of keeping the land going, like property taxes! We set about designing the house we wanted to build. Not from scratch though! We found a custom home design and kit company – Linwood Homes and both Rick and I separately chose the same plan. But we made massive changes, extending one side, removing the front door, adding a porch/mudroom, adding a wall to create an enclosed bedroom and changing many of the windows.
Linwood Homes kit cost – $85000 – (£52400 exchange rate of 1.62)
In April 2015 Rick left the UK and started work on the build. But first he had to clean up after the renters! That took two weeks – they had used our beautiful pristine woodland as a dumping ground, including, two years worth of beer cans and bottles, at least six vacuum cleaners and a car! He wanted to make things better before I brought over Cobolt the Great Dane. I returned to the UK to turn around the Linton house and rejoined him later in August by which time he had put in the driveway up to the building plot. We already had chosen a framer and he was due to start in October, but before that, we needed to install the septic tank, dig out the plot and install a utility line.
It went up quick! Mostly beautiful autumn weather worked in our favour and Rick learnt framing from the hands of a master – Randy Fielder.
Soon the house was wrapped up against the elements and we were on our own! We nailed up all the cladding and Rick laid most of the roof, though, for the steep part, we capitulated and hired in a couple of young roofers to help.
Not too soon. Winter 2016 rolled in! Guttering went up. And we moved inside. Winter/Spring brought first-fix for plumbing, electrics and insulation, completion of the porch and us getting married on our new deck. The summer consisted of dusty plasterboarding, mud and taping.
Costs to this point – $83,000 – and in June Brexit tumbled the £ down to 1.26
The following six months were spent working on the electrics, painting and putting in the underfloor heating system. And then we got the kitchen and bathrooms in.
Costs = $34500 – exchange rate hovering around £1.30
But finally, we were on the last – decorating – stretch. Tiling, tiling and a bit more tiling. Rick got to do some beautiful carpentry and inventive solutions for storage units. We installed the kitchen – units from Ikea and a quartz worktop from a local firm.
We also put up the glass balustrade on the open staircase (another change from the original kit plans). The glass cutters took three goes to get the holes in the specified places (utterly their fault). Rick and I lifted most of the glass into position, but the final piece was set with the help with some friends we’d invited around for a bbq! Before the beer came out.
Costs = $25669.32 – exchange rate between $1.24 and $1.30
We moved into the house in August 2017, spent a wonderful Christmas with family there that year and stayed for another year. Then in March 2019 we made the painful decision to leave this wonderful home and move back to the UK.
Sold the new house and a third of the land for $418,000.
Sold the old house and two-thirds of the land for $246,000 to another self-builder.