HOMES
From dream to reality How one homeowner made her vision come true BY DONNI REDDINGTON
W
hen I moved into my first home I built, my mom brought over some old boxes of mine she’d been storing the last 38 years, dropped them on the living room floor and said, “Here you go, you now have room for all of your old crap!” Not long after that, on a rainy day, I decided to sift through my old memories, and one of the first boxes I opened contained several drawings. There were old drawings of homes I had sketched from the early 1980s. I was around 10 years old at that time. As most of my girlfriends were dreaming of growing up, getting married and having kids, all I could dream about was building a home. The next box contained my report cards, which confirmed
why I didn’t become an architect — my math skills were not so great. Reading one of the comments from my third-grade math teacher, Mrs. Smith, I laughed out loud. She said, “Donni has a hard time paying attention at times but she does some really amazing sketches of homes. Maybe she
Installing the finishing touches in the kitchen. PHOTO COURTESY OF DONNI REDDINGTON can build me a house someday.”
GREAT PROCESS
So 30 years later, my dream came true! I built my first house here in Mazama. The process was a blast from start to finish, and choosing a builder who understood my tight budget constraints and many artistic ideas
made the process smooth. I chose Darold Brandenburg for his honesty, reputation, skills and his ability to be right on with his estimated building quotes. I didn’t have money to hire an architect and I knew exactly what I wanted, so I started back to working on some sketches. I found a website, floorplanner.com, where
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