Building a house is easy. I could do it myself, I'm just too busy holding down a full-time job, raising children, balancing finances, and maintaining the perfect marriage while posting it all on social media. *Takes selfie*
You might be worried, like I was, that everything will go as planned and you'll never be surprised, and you should be. Things always go as planned in a new build.
Plus, how many times do you build a house? Doing things you don't know how to do is generally stress-free.
Here was our strategy…
Step one: delegate.
When we first sat down, Jordan said, what do you want, and we had no idea. So he took us through the design process, sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch after sketch.
The more he talked to us about ideas he had for our design, the more ideas we had, and the more complicated (and dare I say unrealistic) our expectations became. But, the folks at JISH have been doing this, and doing it well, for probably longer than you've wanted to build a house. They know the tricks to make modern design work for practical living (and practical budgets).
Step two: plan with an expert.
Luckily, when completing a complex task, things usually go just as planned, before, during, and after the build. Construction problem is really an oxymoron. Things never go wrong.
For example, the first vacant lot we looked at buying was relatively flat with easy access. I told my wife straight up, Baby, this is too easy, let's chisel something out of a cliff, like Batman. She loved the idea.
We built on a steep hill, with a narrow street, and limited access to utilities, I thought, let's see what this Iverson guy can do. He's got that HGTV award so we went full Iron Chef, or Chopped, or whatever. Each awkward planning meetings we included random difficult tasks and requests that my wife and I made up over cocktails. We would tell him our crazy, unrealistic requests with a deadpanned, just to see the look on Jordan's face. Then afterword we'd sit back, amazed, when he actually planned for unrealistic stuff we'd made up as a joke: triple-level decks, a modern garage door opening from the kitchen onto the deck, a firepole (this last one we called uncle on after we realized we could be sued it someone died using it, but Jordan didn't flinch).
Step three: afterword.
I cannot believe how easy it is to take this house for granted. I swear I could live in the Taj Mahal, and I'd still forget to take my shoes off. The crew at JISH did our walk-though, and I talked about Donald Trump's hairpiece the whole time. Eventually, later, when I started to notice things that needed to be tweaked or modified (we've lived here three years), I'd just text the team and they'd send a subcontractor over to fix it. New houses have little things that need TLC after the build, like cracks from the foundation settling, and other stuff, like we had a sink that needed the faucet replaced. I offered to fix them, and my wife and I laugh and laugh. She really has a beautiful laugh, especially when things break. The good news is that Jordan and his posse stand by their work, a pretty cool concept. Maybe it will catch on?
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