Jeni’s House Update

I feel like we have been building FOREVER. Here is the back story to get you all caught up on our current home building process.

Almost two years ago Nick and I considered selling our home in McKinney and finding something in Frisco closer to the kids’ school so we wouldn’t have as far of a commute. We put our home on the market…and it sold…IN 3 DAYS!! We quickly started the search and looked at SO MANY homes in such a short period of time. We put offers on a few, but we didn’t feel 100% about any of them. So the search continued. Since we weren’t planning on building a new home, we didn’t anticipate more than a few months to find one and few months to do some renovations – 6 months max. We boxed up our entire place and moved the contents into storage units and moved into my dad’s house.

During this time there were many conversations with my brother and sister in law about areas that we all wanted to live. Now, remember I am married to a twin. Their dream has always been to live next door to each other. Since my sister in law is one of my very best friends, I got excited about the idea as well. There were soooooo many boxes to check on each families’ list. There may have been pie charts, graphs and pivot tables involved in this process (thanks Mike!). After much deliberation, we realized that we were looking for a unicorns. There was no way we’d find two homes next to each other…in Frisco…with larger lots…etc. We decided that our chances were better if we expanded the search to finding land and building our own homes. Our husbands are in the construction business so it just made sense. Well y’all…we found our unicorn. It was a total God thing – there is no other way to explain it! The lots are across the street from each other, a few miles from the schools and their office. Also the name of our street is the same name as the street the guys lived on in college (so many good memories there) which was just more confirmation.

So we broke the news to my dad that we would be living in his house for quite a bit longer than expected. We offered to find a place to rent and he said absolutely not (he’s the best) and we began the process of building our dream home.

I’m super excited for us but maybe even a little more excited for these six kiddos to get to grow up right next to their cousins. The two youngest (Hayes and Wade) are only a few weeks apart so they basically get to grow up as twins themselves…love.

We got started right away with the architect. We knew we liked the style of a Tudor but wanted a more modern look – a transitional Tudor I guess you’d say. Our architect really listened to our wants and pretty much hit it out of the park on the first presentation. A few minor changes and we were ready for the real fun to begin.

Dirt work and concrete begins.

We each wrote scriptures on paper and buried them beneath our foundation. This is a memory I will cherish forever.

And finally we started to see our home take shape.

Which brings us to today. We have drywall (praise) and flooring starts next week (huge praise). Now we are getting to the finishes which is the most fun in my opinion. Dayme has been there all along the way and I would be completely overwhelmed without her design expertise.

This shows the front elevation. To the right of the house are the garages and porte-cochère. We put cast stone and paint samples next to the window on the very left. We decided to go with Sherwin Williams Alabaster. It goes well with the white cast stone around the windows and also with the wood & copper details.

Alabaster is the second white from the top on the right. Who knew there were so many options when it comes to white?!!!

I am excited about SO many things in our new home but the backyard is the is going to be incredible. We knew we would be entertaining a ton and with three kids and three more cousins across the street the yard was very important to us. We hired Randy Angell Designs to help us with the design and function and y’all….I just about peed my pants when I watched this YouTube of the layout. I cannot believe this will be our home.

There is still a lot of work left, and we will be sure to share the journey with you all. But we so look forward to finishing the house this summer. I cannot wait to spend time with Nick on our porch, drinking a glass of wine and watching our kids swim. Why go anywhere else when this is what you call home?!