Our Home Search

In the summer of 2003, Lori and I decided we'd like to find a home that more closely matches what we've both always wanted in a home.

We knew we wanted a home with a full basement, mostly to accommodate the family computer geek (me). I was also a stereo bug and a musician in my younger days. Lack of space prevented me from keeping my musical instruments close at hand, and also prevented keeping a stereo system like I once had. Then again, my time for listening is limited now by my other activities (like building these web pages), and my hearing is not what it once was - probably from playing in a "wedding" band from summer of 1978 until the end of 1982.

Lori wanted more room to keep her craft projects undisturbed between opportunities to work on them. Lori crochets, does jigsaw puzzles and makes other crafts projects that she then gives away to friends and family or just keeps to decorate the house.

Lori and I both wanted a home on a single-level, mostly for convenience, but also because our knees are becoming a bit of a problem as we are getting older (and heavier!). Storage is also a problem in many of the newer homes; so, we decided we wanted a full basement for that reason as well.

So, we were looking for a "ranch" style home (known as a "rambler" in some places) with two to three bedrooms, one and a half to two bathrooms and a full basement.

Our home searches took us far and wide in the far-western suburbs of Chicago through many developments and many models from many builders. We came close with a development by Neumann Homes in Cortland, IL near DeKalb. They had a nice three-bedroom, bath-and-a-half ranch plan in their NeuCort development. We had to go to another Neumann development in Plainfield to see a nearly finished home as they had no model available. It was nice, and we nearly went for it, but for the distance from public transit. I would have had a nearly half-hour drive to the nearest Metra station and an hour and twenty minute (1:20) train ride each way from there.

Then, we found the Pheasant Landing development by Stephens and Hayes where Lori's nephew, Tony had looked at homes some two to three years earlier. The development is in an area which borders Joliet, IL, Plainfield, IL and Shorewood, IL. Pheasant Landing had a very nice ranch plan called "The Skylark" that we looked at and both of us liked. We put down the deposit to hold a lot for us and went about selling our current home which was in Carol Stream, IL. Thanks to our realtors, Ron and Bobbie Davidson, our home sold quickly - in three days, even in the mid-2003 economy! - right at our asking price (which means we probably went on the market too low, but...).

With our home sold, we moved in with my Mom in the house where I grew up. Going from a four-bedroom, bath-and-three-quarters split-level into two rooms upstairs in a sixty year-old Cape Cod is quite an adjustment. Most of our stuff is in storage. The furniture went into environment-controlled storage through an outfit called "PODS", which stands for "Portable On-Demand Storage".

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