So Close… And Yet...

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We had never been so close to actually doing it. Selling our comfy, cozy, happy home and moving out to the wilderness… of rural Parkland County. We talked to a realtor. We started madly doing all the projects that needed to be done before we listed. We even met with the bank and were relieved to find out that financially – this could actually happen. But then we told them we're planning on building a garage apartment, not an actual house, and that was kind of that, my friends.

Oh erstwhile future home, we hardly knew ye.
(At least I didn't have to draw it all by hand.)

We knew that the county would potentially balk at the garage apartment as we'd heard rumblings they were finicky about these things. But, honestly, I didn't think the bank would care much. I mean – a house is a house is a house… right?

Not so much. I'll spare you all the gobbledy-gooky details and just say that if you build a garage apartment or any sort of secondary detached living space before you build the primary residence it kind of screws you over in the end as far as the dolla' dolla' bills go.

The hardest part of all this for me is that I now have to go back to the drawing board (aka AutoCAD) with the house design. I worked really, really hard getting the garage apartment plans ready and they were just so very pretty by the time they were done. And I'm not talking about the garage apartment itself – I'm talking about the actual drawings. The notes and the dimensions and the details. The details!

This one I did draw by hand. Nearly two years ago
while on vacation in Panorama. Now I'm trying
to recreate it in AutoCAD as the possible
front elevation of our home to be.

Now here I am staring, once again, at a blank screen. I draw a line. I delete it. I draw two lines. I delete them both. I'm currently so far away from where I was with the garage apartment and yes – of course the garage apartment began exactly the same way. And, before that, there were other house plans I started and then abandoned at different stages and for different reasons.

Beginnings can be difficult. The unknowns. The what-ifs. The not-sures. But they're also exciting. When everything is just a fuzzy idea and the reality of life has yet to make it all real and sharp and stuff.

Draw a line. Delete it. Repeat.

What sort of house related setbacks have you experienced? An offer on a 1920s farmhouse fall through? Someone snatch up your dream land before you could buy it and build a replica of Versailles? Let's all commiserate on the so-close-and-yet-so-fars that come with life as a homeowner.