Hi! I’m Deanna Rogers. This is my adorable little family; my husband, Kyle, and our 3 kids, Lawson, Lockie, and Baylor. We are building a custom home in Greenville, SC. I am so glad you landed on my page. We would enjoy sharing our home-build and design journey with you!
I love a good “before and after” of a renovated space or to watch a home-build from the foundation up. I thought it would be so much fun to create a blog to bring you along as we venture through this incredible process! Follow our home here on the blog or click here to follow this journey on Instagram! Also, click here to get to know us on my personal Instagram page!
Kyle and I moved into our current home before we had any children. Three kids later along with some extra life experience under our belt made the building option an easy pick. We knew we were ready to take on a new adventure for our family of FIVE!
On January 1, 2020, the decision was made to move. Being incredibly passionate about design and decor we knew without a doubt that building would be the only way to go for us. Creating feeds my soul! I am very excited about working through all the options of exterior and interior design for this project! My goal in starting a blog is to keep track of this exciting journey we are going on, share insight on the building process, and hopefully help you find great home decor, appliances, lighting etc. at great prices you can enjoy in your home too!
So let’s get started on what we have done so far with the first steps in our process of building a home…
The most important item on our list was to find land that met our families’ needs. We wanted to be close to our business, which is a chain of preschools in the Upstate of SC. We knew that we wanted all 3 kids to be able to go to our school and use our preschool buses and after-school program when they started elementary school. That put a drop pin on the land we would look at to make sure we were in the school district we needed.
We currently live on .5 acres which has not left much room for the kids to play in the yard the way our house is laid out. Having a little more land was important so we could create a space for them to run free! We had a tough decision to think through as to whether we wanted to build in a neighborhood or on a property not in a subdivision. There were pros and cons to both scenarios for us. We knew it could be a pro to live in a neighborhood and have the kids play with neighbors in the street, be a part of a community or country club, and an almost guaranteed home value if we ever were to resell. However, after careful thought and prayer, we ultimately felt it would be best for our family to have land outside of a neighborhood. All 5 of us are extroverts (assuming Baylor is on track for this). After long days socializing with work or other day to day tasks we wanted to be able to have a quiet space to land at the end of each day. Speaking of space, a lot of neighborhoods do not offer as much land as we wanted which is important to us for the kids. Our final factor leading us to our own land was that we did not want to be under the control of a Homeowners’ Association. It was vital for both of us to bring our own vision to life with freedom for the kids to play in their own backyard!
We got with one of our long time friends and realtor, Renia Trickett with 864Broker and she took so much time helping us find the perfect 2 acre spot that met all of our needs! We all feel great about where we landed! After we interviewed several builders, we were quickly able to pick the one who was recommended by a close friend who already had a great building experience with them, Anchor Custom Homes. I felt right away that this builder was able to grasp my vision. I enjoyed my time with her as well as how she planned to work through the project. Her style matched up with mine. It is so important to know that you are going to spend A LOT of time working back and forth with your builder. You want someone you are at ease with.
NOW, WHAT DID WE WANT TO BUILD?! We went through more floor plans than I could count. We found flaws in every one of them for one reason or another. That was when we decided that we wanted to work with an architect to draw our home from scratch. We did not want a copy and paste, but a creation that met all of our needs for a growing family of five and a back up plan for aging parents down the road (they wouldn’t like that term! lol). We worked with the best architect, Sherman Wilson, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of designing this home. My first words to the architect were “I want to build a closet and then a home around it”! 😉 Can you blame me? I have just as much love for fashion as I do home decor! It took a few months of going back and forth nearly everyday to really nail down every inch of what goes into building a custom home. I learned so much about codes that needed to be met, spacing, elevations, reasons for electrical placement, etc. We had SO much fun designing our house and when we went to stamp the final on it- I knew we were exactly where we needed and wanted it to be! Here is a peek at some of our sketches and a painting which I requested of an artist to do of the outside of the house.
I needed to see what the house would actually look like before I went any further. It was a super helpful extra step I took. She actually had to do it twice because I saw imbalance (once color was added through painting) in the way the house was going to look in reality. Katie Harris Art did such a fabulous job and we can’t wait to frame this and eventually hang in our new home! She does any kind of home painting whether it is for a gift or sentimental purposes and can paint just about anything from a picture or in our case even just by front exterior elevation plans! We have made several changes again even since this image. I am sure there will probably be a few more changes as we get involved in picking the actual materials, but either way this will always be a special piece for us! Here is her Etsy account if you are interested in doing this for a special painting of your home.
We are now six months in. It is about time to break ground. We meet with our builders to pick all exterior materials. I can’t wait to share what we came up with! In the meantime I have been designing each room with mood boards to help me determine fixtures, counter tops, appliances, and future decor for our spaces!
