Who Will Build It?

     SEARCHING FOR A BUILDER

Before the pandemic we started looking around in the Bremerton area for a builder. We considered:

    1. Modular homes - the company we liked most was not available in Washington

    2. Building companies - Coval, Hi-Line, and Armstrong, all had nice models, but any changes to their floor plans were expensive. When we left the Coval meeting, Butch said he never wanted to go back. I asked him why, and he answered,  "That salesman was so smooth that he could have sold me on anything!"

    3. We had one company come look at our property, two brothers, but they were just too slick and quick to say what we wanted to hear. Even still, we drove to Port Orchard to visit one of their newly build homes. We were shocked to see the lack of craftmanship in the display home of which they were obviously very proud. (?)

    4. Ranae came through again for us. She had worked with a woman who was married to a reputable contractor. When she first mentioned him, we didn't follow through thinking we could make one of the modular homes work. However, we needed to customize more than the pre-fab plans allowed. Then we came to realize Ranae's builder had the qualities we wanted: honest, conscientious, and willing to meet our floor plan and special requirements. Plus he was recommended by Ranae. So we went with Ranae's builder.

Ranae's builder recommended a design team. They distilled what Butch, Ranae, and I were wanting in a home and made us pretty pictures. The pretty pictures eventually became sound structural plans that streamlined the building process. It started out looking like this . . .

*We opted not to build the addition. 
*We moved the garage opening to the north side.
*We changed the round window to a square one because the round one had no screen! Functionality is the bottom line.

I'll talk more about that bottom line in future posts.



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