Building My First Home (and Living to Tell the Tale)
I never set out to build a house. But after a long and disheartening search during the peak of the COVID real estate madness, I started to wonder… what if we just built it ourselves?
That question led to a year-long journey of drafting plans, navigating city hurdles, and trying to make something work on what felt like an impossible lot. When it came to the actual construction experience I lacked, my partner Sam and my dad Andy filled in the gaps. I quickly discovered that being decisive (or bossy, depending on who you ask) was one of my most useful tools.
Designing a home on a tight urban footprint meant every square inch had to work hard. I needed the layout to live beautifully, feel personal, and offer long-term value, all while staying flexible. Because if I learned anything, it’s that things will change. Plans will shift. Subcontractors will vanish. But if you stay grounded in the vision, the final result can surprise you in the best ways.
Some of the most rewarding moments came from last-minute pivots. The kitchen island I fought for? All wood, against everyone's advice. It’s now where we make messy pasta with friends, right on the countertop. The cozy second-floor loft is a plant-filled perch where Hazel, our dog, lounges in the sun in my favorite vintage Odd Knutsen Luna chair. And my detached studio, light-filled and multifunctional, is where I paint, draft, sew, and work. It’s a quiet retreat, at least when Sam isn’t busy building in the furniture shop below.
I’d be lying if I said the process was easy. About six months in, we moved from living near the site into a very charming but very tiny one-bedroom basement apartment on Isle of Palms. If building a house together didn’t test our relationship, that apartment certainly did.
Still, what kept me going was the image of cooking my first meal in the kitchen I had envisioned from the beginning, right down to the last drawer pull and cabinet detail.
I think about the smaller moments too: eating lunch with my dad on site every day while his dog happily chewed wood scraps nearby, setting up sawhorses in the living room during flooring installation and inviting friends over for charcuterie, sprinting off in work clothes to meet a subcontractor and ruining yet another pair of shoes in the mud. It was messy, chaotic, and nothing like a Pinterest board, but it was real and full of heart.
Building this house taught me more than any design degree or job site could. I learned how to communicate under pressure, how to balance beauty with practicality, and how to stay nimble in the face of unknowns. It gave me a deeper understanding of the client experience, and of myself.
This experience fundamentally shaped how I approach design today. It reminded me that a house is never just a house—it is a vessel for someone’s story. Even when it feels like the details don’t matter, they do. It’s never too early to carve out a special, unexpected moment in a space, one that might seem small on paper but becomes the heart of the home. Whether it's a window placed just so, a built-in nook, or a countertop you can roll dough directly onto, those decisions are what make a space deeply personal and worth remembering. That’s the lens I carry into every project now.
Would I do it all over again? Absolutely. Would I do it differently? Of course. I’m a designer. Changing things is the job. But I carry this project with immense pride. It was my education, my challenge, and my homecoming.
