Just wanted to send a thank you out to all the people who came through our 2 houses in the Flathead Building Association’s Parade of Homes this past weekend. We had over 2000 people come see our houses, and it was a great opportunity to be able to show people what we do and how much thought and care we put into our projects. I also want to thank all our vendors and sub-contractors who came out and gave part of their weekend to work our houses and represent our company. We have quite the team of people behind us. We feel honored and humbled at the awards our houses received…we are very lucky to get to do what we do every day!!
Come see us at the Parade of Homes this weekend!! We have 2 awesome houses in the Parade of Homes this year…the Middle Fork Lodge in the Lakes and the Woodlot on Marina Crest (both Whitefish). Our Woodlot home was voted best kitchen and best home in it’s price class. Our Middle Fork Lodge home won 4 overall awards: Best Kitchen, Curb Appeal, and Best Interior Decor, and we are honored to have received the judges choice award this year for the most outstanding home in the parade. Best part…we built homes our clients absolutely love!!
We started out with a simple sketch well over a year ago of our Middle Fork Lodge project…just trying to bring the house to life so the clients could imagine it. The other night we shot photos of the completed house. I’d say after thousands of hours of work we captured our vision almost perfectly. It’s a great feeling! Having the sketch framed in the clients home – priceless!
Just posted new photos to our website and Houzz page…and BOTH these homes will be featured in the Flathead Valley Parade of Homes this fall. Check them out on Houzz or visit our website…and come see them in person in September!
http://www.houzz.com/projects/600856/Whitefish-Custom-Home–Hollywood-3600-
Just over a week ago we bought an office. Yes, an office…officially we have an Old Montana space! We are setting up shop downtown Whitefish at 300 2nd Street East above Loula’s in an awesome old brick building which has been standing since 1915. It’s an awesome little space and we are very excited to make it our own. Last Friday we ripped up carpet and tore things apart, Sunday we painted the lovely orange color to gray, and this week we built a wall and floor of reclaimed wood from our own job-sites…and next week we move in!
Did you know all our house names are based off of runs from Whitefish Mountain Resort (ok, Big Mountain!)? We just started a new project in Whitefish, the Trapper…our first spec home. It is something we’ve talked about for a long time, and it’s finally happening…and very exciting! Check out the website to follow our progress! Any ideas for the next house plan name?!?!?
Getting ready to post some new photos to the website of 2 homes we completed in the last couple months. Taking photos is no small project! It is fun and rewarding though to spend a few hours in these houses after they are done – we spend so much time in the construction phase, and never really get to enjoy them once they are complete. It’s nice to stand on top of a beautiful kitchen island and think “this house could not have turned out any better”. And luckily the home owners feel exactly the same way!
“It’s not easy being green”…isn’t that what Kermit the Frog says? Well, in a sense it is true, especially in the building world. But we are pretty proud of our little company and all we have been doing, from our job-site management and material use, to the products we put in our homes. It’s actually not easy, because it takes extra time to break down boxes for recycling and time to take materials to places they can be reused, time to organize a dumpster and make sure we aren’t being wasteful…but is it worth it? Of course it is! Do I feel good knowing we are using companies here in the valley that share our same thoughts on energy use, recycling and green products as we do? Of course! I’m pretty happy with the things Old Montana is doing, and hopefully next year on Earth Day I can say we are doing even better!
We have finished another house! The clients are arriving this afternoon to see their house for the first time in a couple months. So much has changed since they were last here, and we are so excited for them to see everything. I have a feeling similar to a kid on Christmas morning…I really can’t stand the suspense of waiting for them to arrive! Last night, as we stood in the great room admiring how everything came together just perfectly and reminiscing how we got to this point, I could not help but wish I could slow down this last day. It is the best feeling. It is the rewarding feeling. It is the reason being able to do this job is so special and fun. We are lucky.
We just added some photos to Old MT’s website of our little Carriage House project in Rexford. It reminded me of how much we loved working on this special place. We had so many great ideas packed into a small space you would never consider calling it just a garage apartment!! Check out the photos http://www.oldmt.com/photo-gallery/
We finished a house this week. It all started a year ago with countless ideas and hours of planning, never-ending discussions and meetings. There were days when the thought of completing this projected seemed far away, but this week it finally all came together. The end of a project is my favorite part of building a house. I love it all, I am one of those crazy people who is excited to go to work every day and hardly can stop thinking about it when I am suppose to be off. I am lucky. I love everything about my job, but the end of a project is extra special. All those thoughts and ideas all start to come together at once, and suddenly there is this transformation that goes from “construction” to “completion”. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t easy or as fast as it sounds…it is endlessly long days and hours of work…but it is wonderful and exciting and so rewarding.
This week I stood inside the house as our clients drove up. I watched them get out and jump up and down with excitement; I saw their emotion and felt their joy when they saw the finished product for the first time. I felt my eyes burn with happiness, felt a lump in my throat when we had a group hug in the kitchen and everyone tried to talk at once. How proud I am to be part of this, how proud I am of the people I work with. We build houses, it’s what we do…but it is so much more. It is hard to find the right words to explain it, but such an awesome and rewarding feeling. Building a house, as cliché as it might sound, is making people’s dreams come to life, and what better feeling is there?
And a couple days later I am a little bit sad…sad that everything we were working for is completed. Of course, I have many more homes to work on and look forward to, but each one is special in it’s own way. Our homes are not just projects we check off a list, and our clients are much more than people we work for…they become life long friends and people we choose to spend our free time with long after we close the door.
I have an awesome job. Did I say how lucky I am?
We have had a mild couple weeks of winter weather in the Flathead Valley, which has been great for all our projects. We had the garage floor poured this week at the Hellroaring and luckily the homeowners were able to be here for a few days and watch all the progress. We really love this little plan, and it is fun to watch it take shape!
I was listening to a conversation between our project manager and our electrician this morning…they are in an on going competition to see who can beat the other person to work in the morning. I said pretty great when people are fighting to GET to the job site. Have I mentioned before how lucky we are with our Old MT team??
We are 2 weeks away from completing our Middle Fork Lodge project – it seems like we were just starting this home. If you haven’t been following the progress on our website you really should watch the next 14 days. I love this phase of the project…all the fantastic finishing touches! Check out the transformation and all the details http://whitefishcustomhomes.com/3014RiverLakesWhitefish/
We are in the last few weeks of our Middle Fork Lodge project. Our custom whitewashed gray flooring is down and looks amazing, cabinets are going in, and the lights are going up. Hard to say there is a favorite part of building a house, but certainly this stage is exciting and rewarding. After all the months of decision making and selections and this part feels like the frosting on the cake!
There is no getting around it, when you build a house you have to paint it, which means you have to pick a color. Yes, the color of dried Sheetrock mud is appealing (on a recent sample board it was actually the color of choice!) but it has to be covered with something. What is the right color, the right shade, what does it say about you and your home?? I guess the best answer is that there is no right answer…just the right one for you. And…you can always re-paint!
Last night our clients “camped out” in their new bunk beds for the first time. It was the first night in their new Old Montana home, and it was really fun to see how excited they were to claim/make each of their own bunks. Seeing how happy this family is with what we created is the best and most rewarding part of our job!
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- Almost clean – Whitefish Custom Home Builder Montana
- Final finish week…and we made it. I’m exhausted…but it turned out fantastic! Thanks to a LOT of help from the best crews ever!! – Whitefish Custom H