We saw a house that seemed like a great deal on paper but didn't end up being the right one for us. That opened the door to exploring the real estate market around Crozet and helped us to quickly determine that we wanted a little more land & freedom than the nearby developments offered but we didn't want to be located very far from town either.
I never really thought I would be building a house in the middle of Virginia. In fact, when we left Colorado just a few months ago, we swore we were going to be renters forever so we didn't have to deal with maintenance, lawn care and fixing things that needed repair. But, then we fell in love with Virginia, realized that renting meant NOT being able to fix the things that bugged you (like the bloodred paint all over the white bathroom molding)
We found a lot that we fell in love with, just one scant mile from town, but with 3 acres! Visions of orchards and gardens filled my mind. Now, we had the task of finding someone to build our house!
Our hunt for a builder brought us to Jeff at Piedmont who was, by far, the most enthusiastic of the builders we looked at. At our initial meeting, we learned that we could afford a house on the lot that we loved! We had 5 models to choose from, 2 single story and 3 double story.We decided on a single floor plan that we could stay in through our retirement years, if we so desired. We also were really intrigued by the idea that single floor living would keep us all from retreating to our various "corners" of the house.
I am a little tiny bit type A..... (ok, if Jeff is reading this, he is probably laughing out loud right about now)... OCD is probably a better word.
As soon as we discovered that there were model houses to look at, I was ALL over that. My son and I drove around and looked at 2 of them one rainy cold day. Everyone at Piedmont was so kind, informative and helpful. What we slowly figured out was that we liked a little bit of each house. And, much to our delight, Jeff told us that we could combine the floor plans to come up with our own little dream house. 