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.
