From Foundation to Home
Chateau de Mont is both my home and my project. When you buy new construction in Utah County, it’s rare for it to include a finished basement. Ours was no exception. We could’ve paid the extra $40,000 to get it finished, but we were already at the limit of what we wanted to spend on the house. So, we opted for the initial 2400-ish square feet of finished space and promised ourselves that we would finish it in the near future.
The “near future” turned out to take about 6 years.
We did quite a few upgrades ourselves – some of them really becoming long, painful learning lessons, but others being really rewarding. In the last few years, though, my arthritis has caught up to me, and we switched to just paying people to do things. Plus, I refuse to do my own electrical or plumbing work. If the DIY has the ability to flood or burn the place down, I absolutely will not do it myself. Everyone who worked on anything structural was a licensed professional. We also had all work inspected by Any Hour Services, who also has done quite a lot of work on our house.
I’m currently updating this site (which I’ve had since 2016, the year before we even bought this house) to include all the latest updates and photos. Since we’re also listing it for sale, I suppose that could be a moot point soon. But I do love this house and I have enjoyed going through all our old photos. I hope you get something out of it as well.
Location – Silverlake, Eagle Mountain
We chose the Silverlake community after several weeks of careful research. We walked through more than a dozen model homes. We read reviews of every home builder in the area. We compared prices to the existing home market. We even researched the potential changes to any community we moved into – new roads, nearby developments, etc.
We chose Silverlake because of the fiber internet access, affordable housing, lower property taxes, and the potential for growth. Plus, one night we came to visit our homesite and noticed that our view was going to be incredible.
6 years later, this area has exploded. We suddenly have huge retail stores, both restaurant chains and local food, two arcades, car washes, doctor/dental offices, and a theater.