Inevitable

This week it happened.  We got boxed in.  We knew it would happen.  In fact we hoped it would happen, but after living here for over a year alone on our little hill it’s more of an adjustment than I’d thought.  Had we moved here and already had neighbors I’m sure I wouldn’t feel even the slightest claustrophobic, but we’ve been spoiled.  Gone is the light steaming in from every window and the gorgeous 360 views.

The lighting is terrible here, but it’s impossible to get a picture nowdays without a couple dozen construction vehicles lining both sides of the street.

When we decided to build our home we picked the biggest usable lot they had.   It’s not huge, but in a Seattle suburb any land is hard to come by.  Our lot was near the end of a dead end street and no other lots around us had been sold or built on.  The park across the street offered us gorgeous mountain and valley views.  Of course we knew there’d come a point that we’d have neighbors, but until then we’d enjoy the solitude and soak in the stunning views surrounding us.   Only a few months before our house was finished we were told that our builder (Murray Franklyn) had sold all the land to a new builder in the area (Pulte Homes).  Ours was the last home completed by Murray Franklyn and since we moved in we’ve waited for Pulte to get settled.  Not much changed that first year, last summer there was a lot of excavating going on to prepare the land around us for future homes.

 July 6, 2011 - First they dug up the hillside west of our home.

August 5, 2011 – Massive equipment was brought in to reshape the land behind us

 

August 11, 2011

August 27, 2011 – Future plots began to take form

September 1, 2011 – This is our backyard – there would be times these trucks and excavators would be working so close to our house that the ground would shake

March 30, 2012 – Utilities seem to be in place, but it will still be awhile before we have homes behind us. 

In the last several months Pulte actually started selling homes on the finished streets leading up to our house – in fact this spring they sold 12 of the lots near us. 

 February 26, 2012 – In the distance you can see Pulte starting to put in a few foundations

March 30, 2012 – A couple homes in the works – the beginning of the end

We only have one window (besides a small laundry room window) on the west side of our house.  And thankfully the house on the west doesn’t have any windows in line with our kitchen window.  But the view isn’t quite as appealing anymore.

The east side of us though has many, many windows.  It was a little exciting for us to watch them this week as they put up walls on the second story of the home next to us.  

But it was painful for me to watch them put up the wall right next to us.

Gone are the forest and hillside views.  And walking around downstairs feels completely different.  Like someone put a filter over our house and suddenly the light pouring in through all our big windows was cut dramatically.  Like I said we’ve been spoiled.

Thankfully, we will always have the mountain views from the front of our home.  Though it’s beginning to look a little more like a neighborhood. 

March 30, 2012 

June 27, 2012

Sure they’ll be parts of our solitary life that we’ll miss, but we’re excited to regain that neighborhood feel that we enjoyed so much in Auburn (which can only happen when you actually have neighbors).  In fact we’re having a new family over for dinner tomorrow that will be moving in a few doors down – we were thrilled when we found out they had four kids and elated when we found out they were LDS too.  The drawback though is that all summer long our street will be a major construction zone – just when it’s actually nice enough to want to spend time outside.