“Three Years in the making”

And so it begins

Thanks for joining us, read on about our journey to our dream home! This site is mainly for recording the process but also to give you the viewer a chance to see how the process worked for us.

Coming up on retirement for us presented a number of things to consider. Financial; our financial picture would be changed and become fixed income. Location; warm weather the older we get becomes a must have. Health/physical needs; Stairs are for youngsters, we need a ranch style home with family and personal needs and desired amenities.

So, first it took a good while to get family in the frame of mind to seriously consider all of the above. It was very sad leaving the home that we worked so hard to upgrade and loved, but we got a great selling deal and felt we cashed in on the market at the right time. but if I had it to do all over again I would have tried to schedule the building before selling so that we would have had a much smoother transition. What we did was having to wait a year and half between selling our home and the final move in date.

Doing my due diligence and presenting an argument with facts and figures to support my ideas was the way I got everyone on board. We soon realized that the only way to get what we needed in a house was to build. We wanted a ranch style home, it was necessary for at our ages stairs were not our friends.   Next, where to retire? Presently, in Northern Virginia was not a sound option ..Way too expensive. Loudoun County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., is the highest-income county by median household income. So,  looking at many states with criteria of need for lower taxes, lower cost of living, a good place for retiring veterans, decent warmer climate, close to medical facilities, and close to an international airport.  Oh also, close to a large body of water. The Ocean is okay too!!!                                                           

The final spot we agreed on was Summerville, South Carolina. Perfect! Every time we travel down there it just feels so right… Just a tad north of the Charleston Int’l Airport.

All the while, back home I used an app online called Floorplanner and made various renditions of what we wanted in terms of rooms and space. I got laughed at for my first one was 8000 sq ft. Yes, 8000! so …back to the drawing board and I downsized a bit LOL!

Next…….