River House: Selecting a Builder

"When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know -- in the worst way -- before one began."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

There are literally thousands of advice articles on the Internet about how to choose a contractor for your custom home. We followed none of that advice.

TAB Premium Built Home house in Morehead City; courtesy of TAB
Premium Built Homes

Pete and I lived in two houses in Virginia and extensively remodeled both of them. We were very lucky with our contractor, Harold Leff, and worked with him on both houses starting in 1990. It was a sad day in 2017 when he removed the lockbox on the front door of our second house! We appreciated the quality of his team, his eye for detail, his creativeness, and how easy he was to work with. He wasn't going to be the cheapest contractor in town, but you get what you pay for. We wanted to find another Harold when we built our North Carolina home.

We turned the upper half of a two-story sun room into a screen porch over-
looking the treetops; personal collection

And added a foyer to the middle of the house by using the recessed front
porch; personal collection

We chose TAB Premium Built Homes because they were a member of the Southern Living Custom Builder Program. The program is a network of high-quality home builders throughout the south. Builders were selected because of their commitment to great architecture and craftsmanship. We thought this might be the best way to "find another Harold."

I first contacted TAB in 2015 right after I retired and we thought we'd move to New Bern immediately -- before I got the "bright" idea to ease Pete's weekly Albany, New York, to Virginia commute by moving to New York. Andy talked me out of two house plans for very good reasons and taught me how to look at a plan with an eye to cost.

We re-engaged with TAB in 2018 and signed the contract in in early March of 2019. After our first meeting with TAB's team, Pete and I weren't sure who was interviewing who! But once we got through contract negotiations, it's been a good relationship...so far.

Pete and I celebrating being in debt again; personal collection

The contract is a firm-fixed price contract with two areas of unknown costs, which was unusual for TAB. We were unable to get a price quote for site preparation due to the Hurricane Florence recovery efforts. Our contract included only an estimate. Also, our plans would have to be reviewed by a structural engineer to ensure they met or exceeded local building codes. Because we are on a river in hurricane country, there could likely be additional costs.

Next, the hurry-up-and-wait period while permits are pulled and the structural engineer weighs in on changes to meet codes. I have been busy setting up electrical, water, and sewer service to the lot.

River House: House Plan

"Where we love is home -- home that our feet may leave but not our hearts."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Dad was a mechanical engineer by degree who worked at an architecture and engineering firm and then with a manufacturers' representative company, designing commercial heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) systems and selling the equipment. He and Mom were inveterate remodelers of every house in which they lived. (I got those genes.) They designed their last two houses, which they built; and Dad did most of the construction of their house on Dawson's Creek. Some of my fondest memories of Mom are sitting with her at the kitchen table and looking at house plan books. Building a custom home is a project I anticipate eagerly.

After I retired in 2015, Pete and I decided it was time to move to New Bern. He was commuting by plane every week to Albany, New York, and figured it didn't matter where home was. So I started looking at house plans in earnest...And missing Mom’s opinions. We knew we wanted the house to designed in the Southern vernacular -- wide porches, transom windows, high ceilings, metal roof and board and batten siding.

After looking at several plans seriously, we selected a mash-up of three different house plans by the same company, it will look something like this:

Modern Farmhouse Plan with Front-loading garage; courtesy of Architectural
Designs

The three different plans were:

1. 51754HZ -- this was the plan I saw first. We took the foyer, great room, kitchen/dining area and front porch from this plan
2. 51758HZ -- this was the smallest variation of the plan and we used it for the guest bedrooms
3. 51781HZ -- we took the garage/master bedroom wing from this plan

All the plans were created by House Plan Zone in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I worked with Rachel, a great architect, who was able to turn this mess into a wonderful plan that will be just perfect for us.

The three house plans "mashed-up"; personal collection

Open floor plans are all the rage and there are several benefits, such as improved traffic flow and shared light but they also come with downsides. Two, I knew, would drive me crazy:

1. Spaces can appear cluttered
2. Lack of privacy

Reducing Clutter Opportunities

I cannot stand clutter; it makes me uncomfortable. I cook about four nights a week and when I do Pete and I share a bottle of wine. After one or two glasses of wine, I do not feel like hand washing my pots, pans, and cooking utensils. So they sit on the kitchen counter or in the sink until the next morning. I wash them after my morning cup of coffee. In this floor plan, those dirty dishes would be visible from many places in our home. Who wants that? So I extended the pantry two feet and added a sink under the window. The dirty dishes will be hand washed in the pantry sink and will be out of the way until I get to them.

Extending built-in cabinets in the great room to the wall is another tactic in my war against clutter, but the most ingenious tactic is a message center. This is built-in cabinet near the door we use most often that houses a wastebasket, phone chargers, and a place for mail. I'm hopeful this will reduce the amount of paper clutter that seems to trail Pete around the house. The mail center is an idea I discovered in Sarah Susanka's Not So Big House.

Creating Private Space

In open plans people crave space that offers privacy from the socializing and noise of other people. Sarah Susanka calls it an "away room." It's an idea that resonated with both Pete and me as we both like our alone time. We felt we didn't need a formal dining space as it doesn't suit our style of entertaining. So we created our "away room," or den, from the open space that used to be the dining room. We plan to watch television after dinner in this room so we needed storage space for electronic equipment and those pesky DVDs we still own. Again, built-in cabinets solved those storage problems.

Taking Advantage of the View

The plan mash-up also enabled us to have a large screen porch overlooking the river. But some other changes allowed us to take full advantage of this view.

Pete overlooking his new "domain;" personal collection

We flipped the location of the upstairs Bonus Room. In North Carolina these rooms are often called FROGs -- Free, or Flex, Room Over Garage. So we don't have a FROG anymore; we have a FROM! We plan to use this room as an office. Pete will be able to gaze out at the river while he pays bills. This idea was an excellent one and came from our builder during our initial meeting to review the plan and talk about next steps.

Flipping the Bonus Room so it has a
view of the river; created using
Microsoft PowerPoint

The one thing that really bothered me about the house plan was our master bedroom. The view wall was also the only wall on which the bed could be placed, which meant you couldn't see the river from the bed. It took me months to solve that problem. All it took was moving the bathroom door. It certainly wasn't a big change, but it has a major impact! I have no idea why it took me so long to figure it out.

Modifications to Master Bedroom and Bath to accommodate a large bank
of windows so we can see the river from two sides of the house;
created using Microsoft PowerPoint

The last big change was mirroring, or flipping, the house plan to take advantage of the down river view, which is slightly better than up river. You can see the final version of the plan (above right) includes a bank of four windows, which will overlook the river. The triple bank of windows will have this view:

View down the Neuse River toward the Pamlico Sound; photographed by
Ted Jennings

Thanks to my brother, Ted, for stopping by the lot and helping us decide which view we wanted from our bedroom!

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River House: The Lot

River House: The Lot

"In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine?

Ain't it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind? Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind"

--James Taylor

Our future home will be on the lot between the house with the pool on the left
and the brick house on the right; courtesy of NCRMLS

In 1993 Pete and I bought a lot next door to Mom and Dad's house on Dawson's Creek[1] in Pamlico County, North Carolina. Moving close to Mom and Dad would ensure I would stay close to my brothers because we would see them whenever they came "home" to Mom and Dad's. And we could help Mom and Dad as they aged. But life has a funny way of happening while one is making plans.

After much discussion causing a rough patch in our marriage, Pete and I decided not to move to North Carolina in the foreseeable future. We stayed in northern Virginia and moved to a new (to us) house in 2004. When we told Mom and Dad about our change in plan, they were relieved. Their property on Dawson's Creek was becoming too much for them as they both began having health issues. A couple of years later, they sold their house and built a new house in New Bern -- closer to their doctors and less maintenance. It was a bittersweet time for Mom and me. We each had new houses but our dream of being neighbors and spending more time with each other never happened.

Map of the Neuse River with New Bern up the river (left) and Dawson's Creek
identified with the red cross; created using Google Maps and Microsoft PowerPoint

In 2004 my middle brother was transferred to Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, DC, for a three-year tour of duty. He and his wife decided not to move as their sons were in high school. So Ted commuted from Isle of Wight County, Virginia, to our house on weekends and stayed with us during the week. He retired to New Bern in 2007.

That got Pete and I talking about retirement again and where we would live. We decided on New Bern as it would mean seeing my family more often, especially when my youngest brother and his wife, who live in northern Alabama, came to visit. It was important to Mom and Dad their children remain close after they died. Mom spoke of it often.

So in 2007 we bought a lot in New Bern. It was 2.4 wooded acres bordering a large parcel of land owned by the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust -- no one could build on it -- but it wasn't on the water. We thought we'd be okay with that, but...

It turned out being 500 feet from the river wasn't what we wanted. We looked at waterfront lots nearly every time we visited. We've driven down more dirt roads around the Neuse River than I can remember and last year, we found what we were looking for.

Another view of our lot; courtesy of NCMLS

The previous owners accepted our offer on my 60th birthday! North Carolina here we come.

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[1] The television series Dawson's Creek was named for the same creek in Pamlico County, North Carolina. The series was created by Kevin Williamson, who was born near New Bern, the closest city to Dawson's Creek.