Reality Bites

In early December of 2018 on a long drive back from Whitefish, Montana, Amy and I did a deep dive on why we moved to Montana in the first place. It was to make our lives a bit easier, find some solace in the space of the land, the mountains. We always had the goal of having a small place in Bozeman and not extend ourselves financially. The values we set was a comfortable place to live, small and manageable that required very little maintenance that gave us flexibility. We made a very hard decision.

We decide NOT to build the house that we had worked so hard to design. It simply didn’t make financial sense. All the time and money spent with the architect, the engineer, and some initial permitting was gone - spent costs. It felt like wasted money and time. At the same time an amazing sense of relief and peace came with that decision.

We came full circle and decided to do a renovation on the existing building and build a small house within the footprint of the current building. The lot is zoned R2 and is one of very few lots that is zoned to be able to build 2 permanent residential units on the property.

With the help of a builder friend, he suggested we work with Scott Miller. Scott is a trained architect and operates as a design/build consultant. We are now in the process of turning this funky ca 1973 cinder block building into a small pied a terre in the heart of downtown Bozeman.