Upon arriving in Indiana after moving back from South Carolina, the strong vision and deep need that fueled our ability to move home to Indiana dissipated. Elizabeth was exhausted from nightmarish pandemic ICU nightshifts, and I was still, weeks and months afterward, recovering from the whirlwind. We didn’t know what we wanted, we had dreams and hopes, but it all seemed so nebulous, so challenging.

Like Frodo trying to get the one ring to that volcano in the distance, the goal is clear, but the journey is hardly straightforward. We did have a few assets: We had a clear vision of living in Indiana. We had family land if we needed it. We had two solid jobs, our wits about us, and a new trailer to make our recent homelessness sting a little less. We just sold our home and moved in with family. In short, we could do anything.

How hard could it be?

To rent, buy, or build

One of the first conversations I had with Elizabeth before we were married centered around her aspirations. I believe she mentioned building on family land and adopting or fostering. Neither fostering kids nor building on family land had ever crossed my radar. Who was this person? How do I get to know her more? So it should be no surprise that we ultimately wanted to build on family land. But that didn’t necessarily have to happen immediately. We could buy a place and give ourselves a long runway for building a home. We could rent an apartment while we figured it all out. There were lots of options to consider.

To Zillow, we went. I say “we,” but Elizabeth always seemed to have daily knowledge of which houses were newly on the market. We had a realtor show us one good home that was an old schoolhouse that had been finished and furnished in a very unique and ornate manner. The one-bedroom mansion had two front doors, was situated directly on a bustling state road, had a five-foot-deep garage, and had a heavenly courtyard entrance. The house was marvelous but had problems in all the wrong places.

Next up was a house we heard about because Donna, Elizabeth’s mother, rode her bike on a county road and saw the for sale sign (it was not listed online). This was probably an excellent opportunity we let slip through our fingers. It was a three-bedroom whose owner had been chain-smoking inside the house for decades. Very fixer-upper. We learned something about ourselves at each house showing. This wasn’t a move-in-ready home like we had found in South Carolina. This was going to be temporary until we build a house. Since that was the goal, why not work on that goal directly? We decided against the fixer-upper so that we could more quickly build the house we wanted. To build a house, we needed to decide where on the property we would build.

Finding the perfect family plot

Having determined we should get going on building a home, we decided it would be far easier to get the land in our name before we approached a home builder. Not knowing how to do this, we decided our first call would be to the county’s assessor's office. They helpfully provided a list of surveyors to help us slice up the land so we could build on it. One of the surveyors recommended we do a soil sample, so we got that on the schedule next. The chief decision we wanted to make was whether we could or should build on this plot. Both of these decisions were premature.

The first surveyor was confused when we said we didn’t know where the house would be, how big it would be, or any concept of what it would look like. He brought stakes, planned out the house size, and placed stakes all over the field. The stakes were a huge hit. For the first time, we felt like we were making progress. The field we were surveying and sampling soil was not our Sugar Field but a different part of the family land.

What we learned about starting a home-building project on family land.

So we looked at buying a house, kept an eye on listings, spent endless hours discussing which part of the land we would want to build on, and paid several professionals to look at the land for us. What did we get in return? Well, not much beyond a few hard-earned lessons:

• Get started. Whatever it takes to get started, feeling paralyzed is the most paralyzing aspect, so get moving.

• Communicate. If the land is part of the family land, always keep the line of communication open. When we were having the surveyors over, the landowners were always informed more than once, and an invitation was put out there when they arrived to join us.

• Get comfortable not knowing. We got to where we are now not by following predefined steps but by asking many questions. If you stay open to learning, you might be surprised by what you don’t know.

• Stay flexible. The number of times we thought we had a plan and an exciting stage was reached is hard to count. We’re still in the middle of the beginning and near the end of our start. The path isn’t linear, and there will be many starting points. Relish those ah-ha moments when you see that you are going down the wrong road and need to do something different.

Well, we didn’t buy a house or build on the land we had surveyed and soil tested. That’s ok because we learned so much during that time, and the road we took got us to Sugar Field. We’re so glad that you’re on this journey with us, and we can’t wait to share more about where we’re going, even if it’s just that we’re still asking all the questions.