I wanted to quickly summarize where we are in the home-building process. But first, a random picture of our beautiful child:

Get a load of those cheeks!

What we have so far:

• One (1) parcel of land, approximately 3/4 of an acre in size
• One (1) burning desire to build a house
• One (1) bank account with not enough money in it
• Some tools and stuff

Things that we need to do next:

• Find an architect. Not only is this required for getting a building permit, but we’re also building with ICFs, which means that the walls of the house will be literally cast in concrete once they’re finished. Also, have you ever tried to sketch house plans? We have, and it’s pretty fun until you realize that your stairs run straight into a blank wall, the master bathroom has windows facing out into the hallway and one of the bedrooms is not actually accessible from anywhere else in the building. (Not kidding, this is what actually happened.)
• Find a septic engineer. This is also required for a building permit. The calculations themselves aren’t actually all that difficult. Our land is in a pretty rural area, so we have no option for city sewer, city water or other nice things like that.
• Talk to well-drilling people, to get quotes.

Local friends: do you have anyone you could recommend for us?