Surprise! We are re-building our house and moving to Austin! It has been a crazy year-and-a-half since Sasha’s boss told him we needed to relocate to Austin just weeks before moving into the house we had been building for two years (in December 2018). There have been so many ups and downs and changes to our various plans, and despite some things still being uncertain, it finally feels like the right time to share this news! We won’t be moving until December at the earliest given that Google (Sasha’s employer) announced a work-from-home plan through October at the earliest, but we’ll be heading to Austin more often in the next few months to check on house progress, and I didn’t want to keep hiding these visits.
I am sharing tons of Q&A below – make sure to make it to the bottom to read about the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on with this move.
We’re doing it again! Our second home build, this time in Austin!
The lake access on our street was Sasha’s biggest pro when deciding on which lot to build on.
It was about 100 degrees this past weekend, but we were excited to see the bulldozed lot!
The Petrovic girls’ first time to see the lot in September 2019 – Sasha had already visited in July.
We took a day trip in January to see the house my parent’s bought next door (more details below)!
Q&A
Why are we moving? As I mentioned above, a few weeks before we moved into our current house (which we spent 2+ years designing and building), Sasha’s boss told him that he wanted him to relocate to Austin. I was in my third trimester of pregnancy and was in love with our house, so I quickly told Sasha he could find a new job, ha. But by June, I realized that wasn’t happening, and we began to look for lots/tear-down houses to buy. Before the coronavirus lockdowns began, Sasha had been traveling for work every single week – even when Georgie was a two-week old newborn, he was in Austin! So it was time we did something to stop all of the back-and-forth work trips.
Where are we moving to? We are rebuilding our house in the Westlake area of Austin, Texas.
When are we moving? We were supposed to move this July or August, but with the coronavirus/social distancing continuing into the fall, Google has announced that employees won’t go back to the office until October at the earliest. So we are going to move in December or next spring (still TBD). I had already unenrolled Isla from her Houston school and enrolled her in her Austin one, so I had to quickly undo that!
What is the timeline of the new build? We purchased the house/lot in July of 2019 and began working with our architect soon after. The lot is very different than our current one (very sloped vs. flat) so the structural engineering aspect is much more complicated. Plus, we had a little disagreement with some neighbors about a tree we wanted to cut down (summary: we lost!), so we had to do some workarounds and use a special ‘floating foundation’ to move forward. We just tore down the existing house and are in the very final stages of permitting. Hopefully we can start with the foundation in the next few weeks. Our builder is saying it’ll take about 16 months, but I’d bet on 18+. Since we’re basically doing a copy/paste of our current house, I am praying it goes much smoother than the first time we built.
Where will we live until the house is built? In January, our next door neighbors emailed Sasha to tell him that they were going to be selling their house. My parents had mentioned wanting to buy a vacation home in Austin so they could have their own space when they visited us. So I immediately freaked out and told Sasha to email back right away to say my parents wanted to come and look at it. We visited together in January, and they closed on the house in April. My parents are going to renovate the house and are awaiting plans from their Austin-based architect right now! I am excited to see what she has designed! We will move into their house until our house is complete. I am grateful beyond-words for my parents and cannot wait for the girls to be able to walk next door to play with their grandparents.
Who is our architect for the new house? At first, we only wanted to change a few things to our current Houston house plans, so we asked our architect, Kelly Cusimano, to design our new Austin house. The neighborhood that we are building in is a pain in the you-know-what, so Kelly has had a lot more work to do than we had hoped. He is truly so talented, and we are very grateful for him.
What are we changing from our current house? We are keeping most of the house the same, but we are adding some small things like a door from my office to the mudroom, a second dishwasher in the kitchen, slightly changing the island configuration to add space for two more barstools, redesigning the master bathroom to capitalize on the best views, and adding an additional bedroom upstairs that will go above our current playroom. On the exterior, we are going to do white pane windows (vs. black) and wood front doors (vs. black iron) that we’ll paint blue – going for more of a southern look. We’ll do copper gutters and similar gas lanterns – I can’t wait to have planters filled with hydrangeas by our front door! Our lot is on a very steep street, so our landscaping is going to be very different, but we will still have a pool and turfed space in the area right next to the house. I have a few changes we are making to the interior, with the help of Megan Hermis, whom I adore as both a friend and a designer. I’m sharing lots of details on design inspiration below!
Who is our builder? We are using Mike Rhodes of Arrowhead Construction to build our house. Mike is our friend’s brother, and we have been impressed with him since our initial interactions. We are very confident in his house building and love the houses he has already built in the city.
Who was our realtor? We used Alex Tapp with Compass Real Estate. Alex is a long-time friend of ours, and I could sing his praises forever. Alex truly has a magnetic personality, and he is a great realtor. He drove all around town for us looking at properties while we were in Colorado. We trusted his expertise in the Austin real estate market and love the street/area we bought in!
Are we excited? Sasha’s answer from the get go has been, “Yes!” But if you had asked me this six months ago, when I thought we were going to have to sell our house, find a rental in July, move in August, then build a house for 18 months while renting, the answer was absolutely no (probably while crying). With the way things have played out in the last few weeks, the answer is moving towards, “I’m getting there!”. I am so sad to leave our family and friends, but it will be so nice to have Sasha working in the same city as us again! The quarantined working-from-home has spoiled us, and I can’t imagine a life where he is working in another city three days a week again! We also have some very dear friends of ours who live in Austin, and I’m excited to spend more time with them as well.
I wanted to share some photos of our current house, with some design inspiration and decisions we’ve made so far for our home in Austin. Since we are only now in the early stage of build (i.e. just torn down!), we still have lots of time to change our mind and do other things when it comes to many of these decisions. I had fun making these collages though!
Thank you for reading and for your support!
3 Comments
I did not think you could make your perfect house even more beautiful – it’s going to be gorgeous!
A blue southern home ❤️❤️❤️
The master bathroom floor is so unique! Is it a custom installed basket weave or did you use a pre-fab mosaic?
Thank you!