There are many roads to becoming a Happy Homeowner and we are so excited to share this couples' journey of becoming one with John Houston Homes! Our episode guests, Paul and Cinnamon Wolfe, share their adventure of visiting the Waco area, finding the perfect community to build in, and the experience they've had through the home building process.  From a community that had everything they wanted, to navigating supply shortages, and the strong relationships they built with their sales and construction team, they share it all! If you have dreams about building your perfect home, but have a lot questions about what that process looks like, the Wolfe Family's story is exactly what you need to hear!

S3_Ep7 Happy Homeowners (Paul & Cinnamon Wolfe).mp3

Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome Home, a podcast brought to you by John Houston Homes. Join hosts, Chelsi Frazier and Whitney Pryor, as they walk you through the exciting adventure of your home buying and building journey.

Whitney Pryor: [00:00:19] Thank you for joining us today on the Welcome Home Podcast. I'm Whitney, and I've got Chelsi here with me, hello!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:00:25] Hi, everyone!

Whitney Pryor: [00:00:26] Today is one of my favorites, because we're talking to a homeowner and it's so exciting. Will you just kind of give us some background on them?

Chelsi Frazier: [00:00:37] Absolutely. We're actually welcoming back Paul and Cinnamon Wolfe to the show. We had them in before and had a little technical difficulty. Our episode was lost, so we're re-recording. It feels like we're back with old friends today and have some even newer developments in their story from the last time they were here. They're here to talk to us about the process of building a home with John Houston Homes. They're doing this in the Waco area. We can sit and talk about it all day long from our side of the fence, But for people considering building a home and starting from a raw piece of land, that it's really insightful to hear from people that have been through it or are going through it and what their experience was like. I'd like to welcome to the show today, Paul and Cinnamon Wolfe.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:01:22] Hello! It's so good to be back.

Paul Wolfe: [00:01:23] Thanks for having us!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:01:24] Yeah, good to see y'all.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:01:25] Yeah, thanks for having us.

Whitney Pryor: [00:01:26] Paul and Cinnamon Wolfe also came to our photos with Santa. We got some adorable footage of them with their peppers. They are so cute, I've heard, I haven't seen them yet.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:01:38] Yes, they're so cute. We'll have to post them. We'll be sure to put them on a link from the show notes or something because their dogs are so cute!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:01:47] They came out really good. We love it!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:01:48] Have your dogs ever had their photos with Santa before?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:01:53] I don't think so.

Paul Wolfe: [00:01:54] That was a first, I think.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:01:54] They were naturals.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:01:56] They were! Piper was really obsessed with Santa's beard. She was very, very interested in what was going.

Paul Wolfe: [00:02:01] It was a real, authentic beard. He was the real thing.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:02:05] It was legit.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:02:05] We actually get the real Santa. We are the only ones that are able to do that.

Paul Wolfe: [00:02:10] You've got some pull.

Whitney Pryor: [00:02:12] He might pull up in a Toyota Camry, but he's definitely real.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:02:17] Definitely from the North Pole.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:02:20] Well, you guys have the most interesting lives. There's so much that we can jump into today. You've traveled a lot. You've been living out of your RV, as you've been building, and have a YouTube channel kind of documenting that process. I know you all are coming on the end of that, but it's out there in the YouTube verse for people to check out. Let's just jump into it and give it a little background. Where are you guys originally from?

Paul Wolfe: [00:02:45] Sure, I'm from Montana, originally. I did 22 years in the military. During that time, I met Cinnamon.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:02:54] I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I transferred to the Seattle area for work. That's where we met online and got married. Throughout the course of military life, obviously, we've moved many times. We moved to California, we moved to New Jersey and we moved back to Washington. Then we decided that we wanted to live for two years on the road. We didn't actually know how long it was going to be at the time.

Paul Wolfe: [00:03:18] We had like a three year plan actually, but that wasn't all mapped out.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:03:20] It was in January of 2020, before COVID, so that changed some things.

Paul Wolfe: [00:03:25] Yea, it derailed everything.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:03:26] That's life.

Paul Wolfe: [00:03:28] It may have been for the better, who knows.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:03:31] Part of our plan with traveling, was to just explore different areas in the United States, so we could see where we really wanted to settle for a longer period of time. Waco it is!

Paul Wolfe: [00:03:39] Yeah.

Whitney Pryor: [00:03:41] Tell us some things. What were the big things with Waco that made it a clear choice for you guys?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:03:47] I think the biggest thing for us was the size of the city. It's a smaller city, but it's also big enough to where you have most everything that you would need. It's also not Dallas where you have crazy traffic and spending hours on the road. We can get from one side of the city to the other in a decent amount of time.

Paul Wolfe: [00:04:07] Some people disagree with I-35. It's been under construction for the last two years.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:04:10] That's true!

Paul Wolfe: [00:04:13] Once that's done, the city should be very accessible. You can really get from one side, like you said, 15 minutes from one side of the city to the next side. We're an hour and some change from Dallas and Austin. Houston's a couple hours away. It's a good location. It's a central location.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:04:33] You're right in the middle of the country. We still want to travel, so we wanted a little bit more accessible place to travel from. Waco is pretty charming. It's a pretty charming little town. It's definitely gone through a lot of changes. It's growing, expanding and we like that. We like the opportunity of that, as well.

Whitney Pryor: [00:04:52] You're kind of convincing me that I need to live there. Maybe I should live there!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:04:57] It's really nice!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:04:58] I didn't realize it was that far from those other major cities.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:05:02] Yeah, it's a really great location. We've been there, stationary, since September. We've really fallen in love with it even more since we've been there.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:05:12] Did you guys know about Waco before the Chip and Joanna show?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:05:15] Well, I knew about it because of the Waco drama that happened back in the 1980s.

Paul Wolfe: [00:05:21] Yeah.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:05:22] I had heard of it through that. Then of course, it kind of got revitalized with the Chip and Joe stuff, who we actually met the other day.

Whitney Pryor: [00:05:31] Did you?!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:05:32] Yeah! In November, we were at dinner and they showed up. We were at Milo all day and they showed up for dinner. We were with a big group of people, they came up to us, talked and took pictures. It was great and they were super nice, yeah.

Whitney Pryor: [00:05:42] Wow!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:05:43] Yeah, we were wondering how long it would take for us to run into them living there. We kind of knew it would happen at some point.

Paul Wolfe: [00:05:49] Apparently it's two months!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:05:49] Yeah, barely two months is about the time frame.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:05:53] All right, I'll be back in two months everybody!

Whitney Pryor: [00:05:55] That's great!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:05:59] Tell us about your community and your house. Where you guys building?

Paul Wolfe: [00:06:03] It's between Waco and McGregor. It's in Trails of Oakridge. It was a community that was started already, but then they started this the second half, Phase 4. It's a great little community. It's probably what would you say, like 200 houses, maybe less, 150.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:06:24] Maybe 150.

Paul Wolfe: [00:06:25] It's a little smaller. It's not a massive community, but it's nice. It's got walkable areas. I love that they put in sidewalks. I don't know why anybody would not build without a sidewalk, but yeah, it happens. It's a good little community. They're all finishing up, since all the houses are about finished up.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:06:45] They're winding down in that neighborhood before they start a new phase, which is apparently going to start at some point. We don't know when, but they did say another phase was going to come. Actually next to our lot, i's a giant, open field, which I think they're going to put that new phase in there. Our lot is actually at the very end. Once that phase goes in, we'll actually probably be a corner lot, which is kind of cool. We like it. It's just over half an acre. I think it's 0.54 or something like that.

Paul Wolfe: [00:07:13] Huge backyard.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:07:14] When our fence went in, it was very exciting, just to see the amount of space. The dogs, of course, love it.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:07:23] Do you have plans for the backyard?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:07:25] Yeah, we do, actually.

Paul Wolfe: [00:07:26] Yeah.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:07:27] Go ahead.

Paul Wolfe: [00:07:27] We just had a pool person come, Tuesday?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:07:32] Thursday.

Paul Wolfe: [00:07:33] Thursday, so we had somebody come in and they're going to give us a quote. Pool people, if you know right now, they're so far behind. They originally said that it's going to be a year before they can actually start building, but they have an opening in June, so we might go with that.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:07:47] Yeah, we'll see.

Paul Wolfe: [00:07:49] I might try to do it myself too. I'm not sure, that's still out in the air!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:07:51] He's very ambitious. We also put in an additional concrete pad, so we can park our RV, because our neighborhood actually doesn't have an HOA. We're able to put our RV at our home and that was very important to us. That was one of the biggest selling features of getting this lot in particular. We'll have a concrete pad, so the RV will be back. Then, we would love to put in a pool and then put in some additional decking. Paul would eventually love to build an outdoor fireplace and kitchen, that kind of thing. Then, we would like to eventually put in a garden, as well.

Paul Wolfe: [00:08:25] Also, about a month and a half ago, two months, we were actually able to expand the fence, as well. We called them and we we're like, "hey, can we get this fence kind of pushed out a little bit?" They give you an allowance, like five feet from the back of the house, but we were actually able to extend it an additional 25 feet.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:08:44] I think it was like 25 feet.

Paul Wolfe: [00:08:45] On both sides, so our backyard just is huge.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:08:47] It almost doubled in size, just from being able to move the fence.

Paul Wolfe: [00:08:50] They were able to accommodate it super fast. It was great. It feels good.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:08:54] It's made a big difference.

Paul Wolfe: [00:08:57] Yeah.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:08:58] We actually just had a pool builder on the podcast and wasn't he saying Whitney, that Summer was actually a good time to build a pool? We asked him, what is the best time of year or when do you recommend?

Whitney Pryor: [00:09:11] Yeah, he said Summer to early Fall because the weather is just more predictable.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:09:18] That's right.

Whitney Pryor: [00:09:19] Not as much rain, so they have better days to build the pool.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:09:25] For what it's worth, if you are considering June, that would be a good time.

Paul Wolfe: [00:09:28] That's good.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:09:30] Yeah, we're excited. It's a nice, blank canvas right now.

Paul Wolfe: [00:09:34] It is.

Whitney Pryor: [00:09:35] Back to the no HOA thing, that's a big deal, and not a lot of people realize that. In Waco, particularly, we have a lot of communities that don't have an HOA. Up here in Dallas, most of them do have an HOA, especially for people with RVs or boats. That's definitely a big deal because I can't imagine what the storage costs on that are.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:09:57] It adds up over time, so that's a huge benefit for us to be able to leave it there.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:02] I'm sure HOAS'S can be very beneficial. It keeps people from painting the house purple, pink and crazy colors or leaving car parts in their front yard. they can be beneficial. I guess the city also has some restrictions on certain things, as well.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:19] Yes, you can go to the city.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:20] Yes, so at least the city can help out if they need to.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:23] If they need to.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:25] It's good.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:26] We haven't seen anything concerning, though.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:28] It's still a beautiful neighborhood.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:30] It is, yeah.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:30] We don't have any issues with anybody.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:33] Most people keep their lawns looking good.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:36] There is a taco truck.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:37] Oh yea.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:10:38] I wouldn't be mad about that!

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:41] Yeah! We're looking forward to being friends with them.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:43] Yeah, we've been kind of eyeing all the people that we want to become friends with.

Whitney Pryor: [00:10:50] That's so funny!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:10:51] What's it been like building in this time? I mean, I think if I say "this time", everybody kind of knows what we mean, right?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:10:57] Yeah, for sure.

Paul Wolfe: [00:10:58] I mean, challenging, absolutely because the timelines are inevitably going to get pushed back. We kind of expected that just from just everything that's been happening with lumber prices, shortages and labor shortages. Labor shortages are probably the biggest, but at least we've been informed 100% of the time.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:11:23] The communication has made all the difference.

Paul Wolfe: [00:11:25] We're on a texting basis with our builder, Dustin and Scott. They keep us updated probably every week, even probably more than that.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:11:37] We get an official call every Tuesday. He keeps us updated with the text if there's other things that we need to discuss.

Paul Wolfe: [00:11:45] Communication wise, it's been just stellar. You can't put a price tag on that. Other than that, if something is going to come up, they foresee a lot of things and they'll say like, "hey, this could potentially be an issue. I just want to bring it to your attention before or if it does become an issue so you're informed." You can't go wrong with that kind of service. I sound like I'm trying to sell a commercial or something.

Whitney Pryor: [00:12:15] You know, there's so much out of out of our control, right, with the supply shortages. Those are things that we can't predict, but it does go such a long way. Whenever you've got someone that's communicating with you and letting you know, "hey, this is what we're seeing on some of the homes that are further along than yours. You might expect it." It definitely helps.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:12:36] I don't know what's going on in the background, even just this week, We're at the very tail end. We're closing in about a week and a half.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:12:44] Yay!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:12:46] The house is pretty much done. I think they're doing some inspections. Next week, we do our walkthrough. Our appliances were installed last Saturday. We didn't know and I don't know if there was just a miscommunication or whatever, but the the cooktop was on backorder. They installed everything except the cooktop. We didn't really think too much of it because we were just like, "oh, well, we're closing on the 28th. I'm sure it'll work out." Dustin texted us on Thursday and he's like, "I may have a cook top, but I may not. I just want to let you know and to just be aware this could delay things." He was going to a meeting to ask if they had anything up here. He moved mountains and he texted us a picture the next day of the cooktop being installed.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:13:36] Oh awesome, that's great!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:13:37] Like I said, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but I'm sure everybody's kind of helping each other out. Especially, when there are situations where we need to get these people in their house tomorrow. We need to figure out how to get this done right and working together as a team. From what we could gather from him, he was definitely talking with other team members and trying to figure out a situation that could help us out. We really appreciate that.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:14:04] There might be a model home missing a cooktop..

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:14:06] It is very possible.

Whitney Pryor: [00:14:08] I know we have a model home missing a microwave for that same reason.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:14:12] We do what we got to do.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:14:17] Yeah, that's really funny. I think I even had that thought. I was like, "maybe they could get one from a model home, that could work? They could just leave that open for a while, right?"

Chelsi Frazier: [00:14:25] Their not using it!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:14:26] No big deal!

Whitney Pryor: [00:14:28] We'll just buy you a griddle until it comes.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:14:30] We have plenty of cooking materials.

Paul Wolfe: [00:14:33] We live in an RV.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:14:34] We live in an RV. We're resourceful.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:14:40] Well, speaking of your RV, like you said, you've kind of been settled in one place here recently. You're about to move in, but ya'll have been to some really cool places. We talked about that last time. I definitely don't want to not bring that back up because y'all had some fun stories. What were some of your favorite places and experiences along the way?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:15:00] We started our journey January of 2020. We went to California, ten we kind of headed across. Our plan was to go up into the Northeast, that was our original plan, and spend the summer in Maine. That was our original plan, but then COVID kind of derailed everything. We had a lot of interesting experiences. We were actually kicked out of Cedar Hill State Park.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:15:23] Oh no!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:15:24] They just told everybody, "go home." We're like, "this is our home!", So that definitely caused some issues. What ended up happening, was we ended up kind of prioritizing our friendships. We know a lot of people all across the country through living in different places and our military life. We were able to just go see people, which was really, really special, especially during the COVID era of people kind of staying home or staying alone. We were able to still travel and still see people that we knew, which was just so great. We spent a lot of time in Florida. We hit up probably 10 or 15 National Parks throughout our whole two years.

Paul Wolfe: [00:16:08] We visited 26 states.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:10] We visited 26 or 27 states. We played golf in 21 of those.

Paul Wolfe: [00:16:15] Yeah, that's kind of one of our goals, is to try to play golf in all 50 states.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:16:20] Oh, cool!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:22] Yeah, so it was fun. We had a lot of really good experiences traveling the past couple of years.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:16:27] You documented a lot of it right? On the Road?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:31] Focused, Focused on the Road.

Paul Wolfe: [00:16:33] Yeah, Focused on the Road.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:33] That is our YouTube name. We might change the name in the future. If it is, it will be Paul Wolfe or Cinnamon.

Paul Wolfe: [00:16:40] Wolfe Construction.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:16:42] Wolfe Pull Building.

Paul Wolfe: [00:16:43] Wolfe CO.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:47] Something that is focused on Wolfe or focused on Waco. I don't know, we'll see.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:16:50] Well, I love to hear that it's going to come back, so that's great news. We're not done hearing and seeing from you guys.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:56] You're not done hearing from us.

Paul Wolfe: [00:16:58] I might have to outsource the editing portion.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:16:59] Maybe, that's the hard part.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:17:02] Hey, we've got Rob. Rob is our producer and editor.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:17:07] It's a big job, for sure.

Whitney Pryor: [00:17:08] I love that you guys are morphing though. As like your lifestyle is changing, that you're morphing and continuing to let people know where you're at and what you're doing.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:17:16] It's important to us. We have a lot of people all over the country that we want to stay in touch with, let them know what we're up to and find out what they're up to. This has been a good way to do that.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:17:28] Cinnamon, are you still doing your photo editing?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:17:31] I am, yes. I've actually expanded my team this year. I have eight editors that work for me. I do photo editing for wedding photographers. That's the business that I run and it's been great. It's location independent. I don't have to have clients in the same city as me. I have clients all over the country, so I was able to do that successfully the whole time that we traveled. It's nice now because I have more people on my team, which is kind of freeing up some of my time. I have some house projects that I'm going to be wanting to do once we get in the house, so I'm really excited for that.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:18:01] Do you have a dedicated office space with the new home?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:03] I do, and I cannot wait.

Paul Wolfe: [00:18:06] We've been to the house several times. She'll stand in there and just dream about built-ins.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:15] That's actually going to be one of our first projects. Well, the garage is going to be first.

Paul Wolfe: [00:18:20] Then we can use the garage to do all the other projects.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:23] Exactly.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:18:25] Is the garage going to be kind of your construction area a little bit?

Paul Wolfe: [00:18:29] That'll be. I don't think cars are going to fit in there.

Whitney Pryor: [00:18:31] Is it a three car garage?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:33] It's not.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:18:33] You do have a big truck.

Paul Wolfe: [00:18:34] Yeah, it's a two car garage. My truck can't fit in any garage.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:38] His truck doesn't fit in any garage.

Paul Wolfe: [00:18:40] It's fine.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:42] I had high hopes that my car might be able to go in the garage, but I don't know, we'll see.

Paul Wolfe: [00:18:46] Maybe.

Whitney Pryor: [00:18:47] That's a true Texan, though, right there, because most Texans don't use their garage for their cars.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:18:53] Yeah, exactly. It's going to be fun. We have a lot of good stuff in store and I love that my office is in the front of the house, so I can see outside. I'm sure the dogs are going to love it. It's the only window on the front side of the house, well there's a window in one of the bedrooms, too. I'm sure their going to be sitting looking out the window.

Paul Wolfe: [00:19:10] The garage has a window, too. I've never had a window in the garage, but it's a big floor-to-ceiling window. I think it's a 72' by 72. It's a big window in the front and it's going to be really cool.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:19:23] I think it's going to be got the side entry.

Paul Wolfe: [00:19:25] A lot of big, natural light.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:19:26] Yeah, we have the side entry garage, so that's why there's a window.

Whitney Pryor: [00:19:28] I was trying to figure that one out.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:19:30] Yea, because I was looking at some of the other houses and any house that has the front facing garage, obviously doesn't have a window. It's because site entries have the windows for that aesthetic.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:19:41] Now, which floor plan did you guys choose?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:19:43] We have the Concord floor plan.

Whitney Pryor: [00:19:45] That's a fan favorite.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:19:47] Yeah, there's quite a few. The house across from us is also a Concord.

Paul Wolfe: [00:19:52] We picked it before we knew it was really popular.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:19:54] We did, yeah. It really fit well for us because it has that one additional half bath. We were looking at one originally that was just two full baths. When I saw this one and I saw that little extra half bath, I as like this is it.

Paul Wolfe: [00:20:06] It's right as you come in from the garage, so it's like a perfect spot to wash up. It's got the utility room off to the right. I'm building pergolas and it's the stain is just everywhere, so my clothes just get covered. I can come in, just go right in there and throw my clothes in the wash.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:20:27] We did a modification. The utility room used to have this little awkward closet behind it. The pantry is right on the other side of that. We took that wall out, so our pantry just walks through. We can go through the utility room, through the pantry and into the kitchen.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:20:48] Oh, so I'm thinking drop your groceries right there.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:20:52] Yeah, it's really great.

Paul Wolfe: [00:20:55] Yea, so you don't clutter up your counter space.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:20:55] It just makes the pantry so much bigger. We have four really big shelves in there and plenty of room to walk in the pantry.

Paul Wolfe: [00:21:03] It's probably a good eight or nine feet long. It's a big pantry now.

Whitney Pryor: [00:21:08] Wow! You can turn into doomsday preppers.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:21:11] Yeah, we totally could. Don't tell him, his parents do that. They're all about it. They got all the paper towels and everything.

Paul Wolfe: [00:21:19] Rice and beans.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:21:23] Well, thinking about your plans for a garden at some point, yall have plenty of space for canning.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:21:29] Yeah, we're very excited about that.

Whitney Pryor: [00:21:30] You guys are building the Concord, but initially you had to go to the design studio, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what it was like? Was it like the candy shop?

Paul Wolfe: [00:21:41] Oh my gosh. We were very nervous coming into it. We did not have a lot of experience. It wasn't like we searched for a lot of videos to figure out what it was like or what we were going to go through. The website was very helpful to go through.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:22:00] It was so helpful.

Paul Wolfe: [00:22:01] They have that camera where you can choose where to go next.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:22:04] Like a virtual?

Paul Wolfe: [00:22:05] Virtual.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:22:06] The 3d Virtual Tour.

Paul Wolfe: [00:22:06] That was super helpful.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:22:08] There's a section on the website, as well, of just photos of all the model homes. That was very helpful because. Some of my friends were like, go to Pinterest and I was like, "but what if I like things that they don't offer to us?" I wanted to look specifically at John Houston things, so that I could know like, okay, these are the colors of paint, colors of tile or whatever. That was super, super helpful. I spent a lot of time on that website going through those model homes. The day of, wow!

Paul Wolfe: [00:22:45] Yeah, it was like 4 to 6 hours and it went by like it was an hour and a half.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:22:51] It did, but it was good. I wish I could remember her name. I'm sure we have her card somewhere. She was amazing. She just knew what she was talking about.

Paul Wolfe: [00:23:02] She knew what questions to ask too, that was the important part. She would ask things like, what is your style? What is this? Once we picked something out, she instantly had five different options to go with that one option. These are going to look really great in this category. I was just like, "my gosh, this takes the stress out of it."

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:23:21] Yeah, when you're dealing with all these choices, it can be so overwhelming to figure out what's going to go together? What if I choose this over here, but then that doesn't go with something over there or whatever.

Paul Wolfe: [00:23:35] I'm not an Interior Designer.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:23:37] Having her help us walk through that, while keeping budget and priorities in mind, was very helpful. It was a very overwhelming day, but it could have been a million times worse if she didn't know what she was doing. I've heard other people who do more than one day. I think I'm glad that it was only one day.

Paul Wolfe: [00:24:02] Yeah, I think it would give you too much time to think.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:24:04] Yeah, to question yourself.

Paul Wolfe: [00:24:07] Yeah, what's it called, decision paralysis?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:24:11] Yeah.

Paul Wolfe: [00:24:13] It's interesting, we came a few months ago and we talked, but now we have a much different perspective on it. We've seen the entire house, how it's played out and how it's built. From the very beginning of standing on a piece of land and saying, "this is now what we chose. We chose this piece of land." Then to like look at the house, go to the design studio and now it's all coming together. It's just been a really cool experience. It's our first build, but it will not be our last.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:24:46] No, probably not.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:24:48] I think that says a lot though to say that, having built in the toughest time. To say that you would do it again, I mean.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:24:57] Absolutely. I think honestly, the communication and the service that John Houston has provided. I don't know what it's like to build with anybody else, but this experience has been great, even despite the challenges. Again, I think that comes back to communication, knowing your product and knowing how to talk to people. It really matters.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:25:17] What would you say to anybody considering building a house right now?

Paul Wolfe: [00:25:21] By being around the people and seeing just what they're there about. I guess one of the big things that I might take away from this whole thing, is the character of the people that we're working with. They don't come out and say, "these are our values, what we believe and all that, but they just kind of come through with their passion. They're passionate about building and making sure it's right, especially Dusty.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:25:52] Dustin. He knows two other people named Dusty and then a Dustin.

Paul Wolfe: [00:25:55] I've never met a Dusty in my life.

Whitney Pryor: [00:25:56] You guys were just so close that you started calling him Dusty!

Paul Wolfe: [00:25:59] Yea, I call him Dusty, you know us, we go by that! He's been just a key player in this whole thing. He's super passionate about this stuff. He takes it serious, as if this is his house, you know? You can tell that he's really, really passionate about it and he really wants to make sure that it's right for you. We are usually they're every other day or sometimes every day.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:26:28] So you are friends?

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:26:28] Well he's not usually there, but he's like, "have you gone by the house lately?" We're like, "yea!" Scott has been so great to work with, too. Scott was who we worked with initially. He was really upfront and had good communication. We had another builder before, who got promoted, and then we got Dustin. Everybody has been just so great to work with. You ask, what should somebody who's thinking about building a house? I enthusiastically say do it because just having the ability to choose what's important to you about a home, to pick the finishes and to be able to pick kind of how you're going to live in the house, I think that that's just a really neat experience if you have the opportunity to do it. Some people really prefer like fixing up a home and we enjoy that too, but this has been a great experience just to kind of see how it all ties together. To know what the inside of your walls looks like is so cool.

Paul Wolfe: [00:27:29] Yea, we took a lot of pictures. We took pictures when it was framed, when the electric went in and when the plumbing was in. We just took photos along the whole process. Right now, we want to put a sink in the utility room for a dog wash.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:27:47] We got to wash the dogs!

Paul Wolfe: [00:27:48] Now I kind of know where to to where the plumbing is at, where the electrical is at and where I can go. Also in the garage, I'm going to put some electrical for an RV outside of the house.

Whitney Pryor: [00:28:03] That's a really great idea! That's a good tip that I don't think I've ever heard from another homeowner. If you're building, takes pictures if you have the opportunity.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:28:10] Before the walls go.

Whitney Pryor: [00:28:11] Yeah! We get so many calls afterwards saying, "we don't know where the electrical is in the home and we want to do this thing," so take pictures!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:28:18] Yeah, absolutely, because you can just reference back. You know what's behind the wall, where to put your whole and do all that stuff.

Chelsi Frazier: [00:28:29] I love that yall shared that that's been your experience with Scott, Dustin and the other other Waco crew down there. John Houston has always said, "we're not in the homebuilding business, we're in the people business." We say that and feel it, but then to hear that that's actually being walked out too, is just really cool. The relationship is so much more important than everything else.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:28:55] We tell people. We have some friends and family that are actually moving down here and we're like, "we know a good builder! We know good people!"

Chelsi Frazier: [00:29:05] Thank you both so, so much for being on the show today, again!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:29:09] Can we come back later? This is so fun! We'll come back anytime!

Chelsi Frazier: [00:29:12] Hey, we probably should just do some updates, at least at some point about what you guys have done in your backyard. We just went through a really awesome Outdoor Living Series on the podcast with some tips for folks on what to do in their backyards with gardening, landscaping, gutters, pools and all that stuff. Maybe we can get some pictures and talk to you more!

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:29:34] Yeah, fun, we are down!

Paul Wolfe: [00:29:35] Yeah.

Cinnamon Wolfe: [00:29:35] We're down.

Whitney Pryor: [00:29:36] Thank you listeners for joining us on this episode of the Welcome Home Podcast. For more information, visit our website at jhoustonhomes.com, where you can view all of those beautiful gallery images in 3D model home tours, that we just spoke about in our podcast. You can also reach out to us at info@jhoustonhomes.com or follow us on social media, on Instagram or Facebook. Thank you!

Chelsi Frazier and Whitney Pryor: [00:30:02] Welcome Home.