Love the area your current house is in but not the house? Buy a vacant lot in the same area and build your own dream home. That’s what this couple did and they couldn’t be happier. Read on for their story.

From the article:

Jeremy and Amber Scardina lived for 11 years across the street from the spot where they eventually built their dream house. “We loved the area we lived in so much that when we saw a for-sale sign appear in the empty lot across the street one day, we thought it just made sense to build there,” says Jeremy. “The timing was great.” The couple decided to take advantage of the space’s huge (9,000-square-foot) lot, building a sleek and contemporary home with plenty of outdoor space for themselves and their three kids.

The couple was determined to get the most out of the huge lot, so they built just a couple square feet under the maximum floor-to-area ratio allowed by Austin’s McMansion Ordinance.

“It’s very difficult to ever have a perfectly timeless design, and by no means could we ever assume our design is actually timeless. We tried to design the house in such a way that in 20 years from now it would be hard to tell it was constructed in 2012,” Jeremy says. “We wanted to try for something that could be interesting to look at but neutral enough to work next to other designs in the future.”

Building a new home is always fun, and you can get some ideas by checking out our huge collection of home designs at HousePlanGallery.com!

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To read the entire article click here: http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/3874621/list/My-Houzz–A-Dream-Home-Grows-From-an-Empty-Austin-Lot