Building a Home: The Binder

We got married in April 2014. In June, we bought four acres of land. By October, we'd drawn plans and interviewed builders. We broke ground two weeks before our first anniversary.

They say the first year of marriage is the hardest. They say building a house together really tests a marriage.

So, why not do both at the same time and get the whole darn mess out of the way?

We faced a lot of challenges during our home building process, but the hardest thing to learn was how to make decisions together and stick to them. In order to document the process and keep our heads on straight, I created a home building binder.

First, we filled the pages with inspiration photos for everything we could think of. We found most of these pictures on Houzz.com or Pinterest. Then, I saved multiple images in similar categories together on the page.

Categories include: colors, exterior, flooring, basement, garage, bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, and living.

As the process went on, we found it easier to make decisions when we were looking at visual images of things we liked. Things like cabinet design and countertop selection were much simpler than I had thought they would be.

After selections were made, we stuck the samples in the page dividers for future reference.

Some of the samples didn't fit in a binder, so we saved their manufactuer and name in the binder instead.

We each have a different style of communicating, and initially we struggled trying to choose options for our home. Once we decided to take the visual approach, we learned our tastes were much more similar than we thought!

I'm not saying this binder solved all of our challenges in the home building process. But it certainly did eliminate the excess drama and frustration of not being able to communicate our thoughts.

We keep this binder in the office for quick reference if we need it. It's fun to flip through the photos that inspired us along this journey and compare to what our home looks like today.