Mike & Patti Bacon
This Greenville, SC couple downsizes to their Donald Gardner dream home, the Lujack.
As we go to press, Mike Bacon is only two months shy of retiring and couldn’t be happier. With two daughters grown and out of the house, Mike and his wife Patti are ecstatic about building the dream home where they will spend the rest of their lives. Having scoured several plan magazines and books, they finally settled on Donald Gardner plan 1043, the Lujack.
The exterior shape of the Bacons' new home is already apparent.
“We wanted to downsize and were interested in a smaller, single-story plan with the possibility of a bonus over the garage,” Mike explained. While their current house is quite large, it was the ideal home to raise their two daughters. Being empty nesters, however, the Bacons were looking to the future and not interested in climbing stairs as they aged.
“We wanted everything on one level, because our current home is a two-story and our bedroom is upstairs,” Mike said. “We liked the idea of a large bonus room above, and this home had that, in addition to the brick exterior we’ve always loved,” Patti added.
Originally hoping to wait until after Mike’s retirement to build, the Bacons found a lot in a neighborhood they loved and started flipping pages in house plan magazines.
“Years ago I had seen a Donald Gardner home and clipped it out of the paper. And now several years later, when we were seriously considering building, I found another Donald Gardner plan I liked,” Patti explained.
After narrowing down their plans, the Bacons knew the Lujack contained most of the amenities they loved. One detail that stuck out most was the large bonus room. Mike was looking to create an exercise room off the bonus, and due to the Lujack’s vast bonus space, he imagined that with a few modifications it would be possible to build the exercise room.
The front part of the bonus room will be an exercise room with a treadmill.
“The plan has a large bonus room that was 28-feet originally. We added three feet to the garage and subsequently added three feet to the bonus above it, making it 31-feet overall. This allowed for a good size bonus room even after the creation of the exercise area,” Patti said.
While many younger families use the bonus room as a kid’s play space, Mike plans to make it his personal oasis. After 33 years in various capacities as a human resources administrator, Mike couldn’t be happier to know his kids are raised and his retirement well earned.
“I joke with my wife that she might not see me for days,” Mike said referring to the comfort of the bonus room. The Bacons added a full bath and closet to the bonus room, which in turn will transform the house into a four-bedroom if the time comes to market it for resale. But for now, Mike plans to install a microwave, mini-refrigerator, big-screen TV and comfortable seating for friends and family to come over and enjoy football games and movies.
Other modifications include adding three feet to the master bedroom, adding a four-by-five-foot storage area on the rear of the home and changing the garage from a front-entry to a side-entry.
The master bedroom has a single door that leads to the back porch.
“We looked at a lot of plans and this one fit the lot well and will look good on our corner lot. We decided to create a semi-circular driveway to create extra parking because we like to entertain and have friends over for dinner on a regular basis. Most of the houses in the neighborhood don’t have much parking, since they are patio homes,” Mike said.
They were happy with the plan as it was originally designed and didn’t feel the need to make many drastic modifications other than the bonus room changes and garage entry.
“A lot of house plans we saw brought you right into the utility room off the garage. Since we will use that door more frequently, I didn’t want my laundry room to be visible to friends or have to walk by the washer and dryer just to get into the home,” Patti said.
“Another thing about Gardner plans we loved is the built-in shelves in the great room being on either side of the fireplace, and the fireplace on the internal wall instead of the external wall. We wanted that for functionality,” Patti said. The Bacons turned down many plans because of the inability to have built-in shelves adjacent to the fireplace when it was positioned on an external wall.
Custom built-ins will be added on both sides of the fireplace.
Mike and Patti are no strangers to the home-building process. Having built their first home 18 years ago in the same town of Greenville, South Carolina, they are excited to try it again. While the home building is going smoothly, selling their current home during a tough real estate market has proved to be the real challenge.
“It’s driving me crazy,” Mike said of trying to sell their current home. “Trying to keep the house clean and update it is really hard when I just want to be excited for the new house,” he said. Part of their excitement comes from knowing that this new home will include everything they’ve wanted in a home that they didn’t have before.
“I enjoy building because you can pretty much get everything you want. Our builder is very accommodating and has never told us we couldn’t do something because it wasn’t the standard thing to do, which our former builder told us many times,” Patti said.
“That’s the reason I wanted to build another house, because I had to sacrifice so many other things before,” She said.
The Bacons previous knowledge in home building keeps them from succumbing to the typical relationship strains that many couples endure when building a home.
“We’ve heard the horror stories, but we haven’t had that because we remember to communicate with one another,” Patti said.
“I think the other thing about building a home is that it puts a real emphasis on communication between you and the builder, the builder and the foreman, the foreman and the subcontractors and the subs and the people doing the actual work. So there is a lot of opportunity for slip-ups when there are so many people in between. I think you have to work really hard for communication,” Mike added.That communication is what has led them to a successful relationship with their builder, Dave Sarkela of DSR Builders in Greer, SC.
“So far, everything with Dave and his foreman, Chad Niskanen are excellent,” Mike said. “Everything that they said they were going to do has been done, and it’s been done in the time frame that they said,” Mike added. “For example, I asked for a wind curtain along the curb because I didn’t want mud to wash into the street and irritate the neighbors. It had been knocked down and the next day there was a new one up,” He said.
Having not built a home in 18 years, the Bacons were most excited to learn about the possibilities of energy-efficient, “green” products they could put into their home.
“I’m excited about the green build. A lot of things have happened since I built my last house, as far as with energy efficiency,” Mike said.
The Bacons are taking great measures to create as “green” a house as possible. Currently, the are planning to install a tankless water heater that will offer them a tax deduction thanks to the Government’s recognition of those who are doing their part to save energy. Patti and Mike are also installing energy-efficient windows with Low E2 coating, Tyvek house wrap, therma-barrier sheathing to keep the attic cool, and energy-efficient Panasonic vent fans in all three bathrooms for moisture control. In the bonus room they have chosen solar powered battery-operated shades for their Velux skylights, which allows them to operate the shade via a solar powered battery remote.
“I was excited about the skylights initially because the bonus room doesn’t have many windows, and since we stretched it an extra three feet, having natural light is important. But I am even more excited now to have the shade so that I can darken the room during football games or movies. And the fact that it’s solar powered is even better,” Mike said. “Anytime you can use solar applications, well, we are big fans and think that it’s great,” Patti added.
The Bacon’s green building doesn’t stop there. They also plan to use Kitchen Aid Energy-Star® rated appliances and want to install HVAC with the highest SEER rating.
“We’re trying to make sure everything we do is taking energy efficiency into account,” Patti said.
Join us next time as we visit with the Bacons to see how their building process is going and learn about the exciting products they’ve chosen for their new Donald Gardner dream home.
VIEW THE LUJACK HOUSE PLANS HERE: http://www.athomewithdon.com/home-plan-details.aspx?pid=2840
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