Bettinger Retreat - The plan

Home designing is at the top of my list of hobbies I enjoy! I am so excited that this project is going to be my largest project to date! Let's see how this all began.. starting 17 years ago..

Seventeen years ago I moved into my first place, a small cabin that my husband's family owned. They let me make it my own, new paint colors, decorating, landscaping... it was so much fun! I would share a few pics but they are currently in storage, yes back when we printed pictures! 🤣.. it was definitely a teenage design, a learning experience! 👀🤷🏼‍♀️ and something I'll have to share sometime for fun!

And then a year and a half later, David and I purchased our first home together.. we did a little flipping.. cleaning up, painting, more landscaping, and other odds and ends around the home..4 years later sold it to our friends!

We moved on to building our first home together to raise a family of our own. This was a Wayne Homes build, so the floorplan was limited in what you could change (without going completely custom and being affordable for us), paint colors, interior design is all pretty limited. At the time this was a great choice, fast build, beautiful home to raise children! No complaints... We personalized it throughout the years!

AND then 2 boys later.. we start camping.. which then led to racing locals.. onto the nationals, another year we welcome child #3!! We love to travel, we love camping & racing! Wow, our lives have changed so much since we built this home! It's not feasible to turn our home into a home of our current family dreams. 🧐 We've made it work BUT life could be simpler and full of many adventures.

We start talking about a "garage home." We think about things that would make all of our traveling a little simpler. The boys would love more space to ride bicycles, ATV's, dirt bikes, anything that has wheels!? Hunting.. fishing.. all things outdoors! It's time that we search for land to make this happen!

The best part here is I get to design this house! Every detail from drawing the floorplan to finishing touches! My design ideas have came a long way since the rose pink walls with carmel painted trim of the cabin! 😂

After a few months of throwing the idea of a garage home around things started coming together!

Unfortunately, in the spring of 2022 we lost David's uncle unexpectedly. He had a little over 9 acres of land that was going to auction. We walked the land and decide this would be great place to call home! BUT we don't think we will have a chance to purchase, as the land at auctions has been selling high. Recently, 8 acres in the area sold for $90,000! 😬 ... No I'm not spending that kinda money on land here! The electric is on property, water is across the road(may need underground bore), needs a septic!

Fast forward to November 2022, SURPRISE... we were at our last $ and they say SOLD pointing to David.. 👀 Did we really just buy land!?

Ok.. now we have to sell our current home before we can do anything else..we really didn't have a plan?! Yes we had been thinking about it and talking about some ideas but didn't think it would be like right now! We need to find storage units, and a place to rent while we prep land/build! Yikes.. we have faith that everything is coming together and it will all work out!

Advertise our home for sale the day after purchasing land.. could of sold it same day with many offers, but took a few days to make it offical since everything is moving so fast!

Close on our land then close on our home, and move out by Jan 1, 2023! 😅

OK... NOW to the land! A few before pictures!

There's a small barn/shed, barb wire fencing, field, and woods!

A great view for my porch I'd like to have!

The only downfall of the property....

Yea that is an interstate over there on the other side of the land... It is nearly impossible to check every box on a want list.. so this is our sacrafice.. A nice row of pretty cedar, spruce, and pine trees will fix that shortly!

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The barn/shed that David's uncles built on the property for the horses:

Orginally our thought was to take the barn down, and incorporate the wood from the barn into the interior design... However, we've came up with something really fun for this! So in the future there will be a barn/shed reveal! The kids are gonna love it!

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Hayden and Luke couldn't wait to tear out a few fence post and cut a tree for firewood!. They have all been warned by Hayden and I no tree cutting down unless it's dead!!! For every tree they cut down they have to plant another! 😂 Otherwise Luke would have the woods we own gone in what, a week!?

Anyway, we needed to clear an area for a excavsting and a driveway, so there is 1 tree we have to take out that has been approved for removal.😂

Wow, taking out a little fence and a tree really opened it up!

We are thinking our driveway will come in here passed the barn and the house sit our behind the barn. Thankfully, that is really the only work we need to do before they come to start excavation!

My planned view for our back porch with a fire place, hot tub, rocking chairs, whatever else we decide!

Now it is begining of February and it's time to shoot grade and get started! ... We originally were thinking we'd need to move 3-4 feet of dirt to get a solid ground flat for our garage home. Well... it might be more like 8ft! Doesn't look like it drops that much as you go out behind the barn BUT it does! We'll start moving dirt and go from there.. we can stop and measure out the house to see when and how it fits best.

After a couple days of moving dirt:

These boys have been enjoying the land already.. we've built tracks and surprisingly had beautiful days this winter to ride!

and then we really start to see a change:

and then it all changes even more! We love it! We have never had a flat yard or even close! We were worried about the bank formed by the barn because we were taking down so much dirt, but I love how it's taking us down to our house and a gully has been filled in.. great view form my back porch, no houses! and the view from my front porch swing!? .... my kids riding the fields and woods!

Now the excavating is done except spreading the rest of the topsoil!

We have a driveway! Not how we orginally imagined it coming in straight with the house angeled... now the house is turned completely and the driveway comes in at an angle... but we think it is better and I love it!

It is really hard to show the change from all the different camera angles! I wish I would of done a video before. I did do an after video!... There are little pink flags where the house is staked out but difficult to see them.

There are still piles of topsoil here behind the barn until the house gets framed.

Water tap is in and they've started to dig water line! Electric is ready to be ran once house is up! Soil testing and all the septic info is ready to go for it to be installed soon!

We are only a couple shorts weeks away from getting started! Framing materials, windows, doors, stone for the front are all ordered and scheduled for delivery!!

Well I've done all this sharing and showed nothing about our house plans!? What did we decide to build? and why!?

This was fun designing a home to match our racing/camping/traveling lifestyle! Hopefully we laid it out to be helpful and make packing/unpacking life simpler! I know it's a fact no matter how many houses, how many things I look at, there will be things I'll wish I did different.. but hopefully it's nothing huge!

Things we are excited about and save time:

1. Camper stored inside, can clean, pack, unpack no matter the weather! The camper won't get muddy from me running in and out packing! 👏🏻 Never have to clean it out for "storage"!!!

2. Camper hook ups where it is parked! No fighting over the one water hose or who gets to clean fist! David will have his own water spigot for cleaning bikes/gear and everything else that is dust/mudd covered! I can clean camper at the same time! 🤗

3. Glass Garage door between house and garage.. getting me a large cart on wheels, load that thing up and roll it on out to load it into camper! ... what I wont be going up and down 2 flights of stairs and walking around the house.. trip #20 to load!

4. Utlity sink in the garage!.. No more scrubbing muddy clothes inside!? 🥳

5. Rainy days clean vehicles and camper indoors so we can be outside enjoying sunny days!

6. To be able to load the camper where it is parked, and load early! Before we had to load hauler as we were leaving, parking in the road, down the hill, or neighbors driveway.

7. A workstation for ATV/bike maintenance with bright lights! All bikes in same garage rather than 1 uphill and 1 downhill!

8. An office/fitness room!! Yes fitness is in my lifestyle and I needed my own space to stick to it!

9. Kids don't have to share bedrooms and closets! No more "toy" room, they can all have their own and be responsible for their own room cleaning!

10. Only 1 kitchen to clean 😅 2 was like never ending kitchen cleaning!!

11. An actual laundry/mudd room with a coat closet and each of us have a locker!! Oh this is so necessary with all the carharts, bibs, rain jackets, winter jackets, school jackets, book bags, lunch boxes, they take up so much space! Organization is a necessity for me to function happily!

12. Minimal, very minimal landscaping.. no time to keep shrubs and bushes trimmed! We'll landscape out around the fields where you can let it grow wild!

13. Concrete porches.. hose them off and done! No white vinyl railing to scrub down, every SINGLE spindle. Only 2 porches.. not 3 plus a patio 😅

And there is so much more I'll be mentioning as we go!! These are just a few things we think will make a difference in our adventerous lifestyle!

I am calling this home the Bettinger retreat! Hopefully it will actually be more like a retreat between travels rather than nothing but work!

So the plans and design!? .. I want to keep it simple, clean, low maintenance, cozy mountain cabin like. Bringing the outdoors in! I know we don't live in the mountains, but I would love to.. so maybe the view here and the design can make it feel a little more mountain like around here! and we are building a small home in the mountains that we can go to anytime so this will do!

As I mentioned, I drew up the floor plan, but orginally started with the Melrose on backforty. I wanted to buy they plans from them and move a few walls around, change some rooms. AND then reality hit... I am doing this to have low maintenance, less cleaning, less cost.. we do NOT need a 3,000 square foot house! What are we doing!? 🧐😳

Melrose:

We decided to use our knowledge on what we needed to work for us and started penciling down ideas... a lot of scrap paper and hours later we had a pretty good plan! It is still based similar but not exactly to the exterior looks of the Melrose.

We now have a Garage/Home plan that will be 76' x 50' x 18'. The house will be 25' x 50' open living, loft and second story. A little over 2,000 square feet of living space, 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath. Garage 50' x 50'!

David's exterior drawings:

*note: this is drawn on scrap paper not perfect!

I have an interior floor plan drawn, working on finishing tweaks. My cousin is helping with his engineer knowledge so it is legit, not just my 5'6" measurements! 😂 We really needed his help on making a stairway to the 2nd story work with all of my this and thats! I'll share our floorplan in my next blog with the the framing/exterior finishes! Sorry, you'll have to wait!

What colors will this house be!? ... here is the stone for the front of the house!!

And we really love the door we put on our #bettingeralpineescape so we are going to use the same here!... & Anderson windows!

The roof and the siding... well I'm gonna let you wonder on that for a bit until we get started! Hopefully weather stays nice and on track so we'll be back shortly with a framed update!

We have a lot of design planning going on with our #bettingerretreat and #bettingeralpineescape !! Stay tuned!!

Thank You for Reading! ❤️

Disclaimer: I am not a professional designer. These are my personal opinions and I am not giving professional advise or recommendations. Only use ideas on your own will. Thank you!