Shopping

If Bozeman was going to be our stimulus package, the question was, where should we look. Bozeman has so many great neighborhoods. So many things were driving that decision but ultimately we knew that we wanted to be close to Main Street - walkable to restaurants, coffee, shopping etc. That would be a contrast to the property in Ennis which is acreage (comparatively small) surrounded by big big ranches.

We looked at old houses to renovate, new renovations that were already completed but ultimately we wanted to build something that was our own. Fast forward to when Amy was spending the winter in Ennis on her sabbatical. She shared our idea with a good friend and he said, “I have the place, come with me” So we put on our coats and took a walk and came to a snow covered lot and in the back of the lot was a cinder block building with a big garage door. We spoke with a referred real estate agent, made an offer and closed on the property in May 2017. We bought a garage!

Now what?!?!

So many decision points - what do we do with this property, what do we want, how do we want to live, who will design the house, the property is zoned R2 (two residences permitted) so what does that mean to our design thoughts, when should we build, who will build it…

We interviewed 5 architects and settled on Lori Ryker - great designer and a good communicator with Amy. That was imperative because Amy was going to be the leader on the design of this project. The journey begins in exploring what we want to do and how we were going to proceed.