Our IndieDwell Home, Part 7, or, Early Adopting Has It's Downside
I’ve been writing for the past several days about our experience purchasing a home from IndieDwell in Boise. You can read all the previous parts of the story here:
This is primarily an exercise in catharsis. I’ve mostly held in all my thoughts about it since we bought the home in 2020. It would serve as a caution to any prospective IndieDwell customers, but the company is no longer doing business in the same way at all. They don’t use containers any more and they don’t work directly with homeowners.
So, as I wrap this up, I am sometimes asked (usually by my local contractor John) if I’m glad that we did what we did.
Yes and no.
I’m confident that going with IndieDwell was a mistake. It has become clear to me that they did not have the appropriate people and systems in place to successfully complete my project so far away from their home base in Boise. I hope they learned a lot about their own weaknesses through the process and were able to improve their business through my feedback.
It also seems clear to me that we signed on with IndieDwell right when they were reconsidering their whole business model. This was unfortunate for us because they didn’t have the time or the motivation to really serve us as clients. They were shifting to a model where we wouldn’t even qualify as clients, so our needs didn’t register very high for them.
However, I am really still glad that we downsized our home. Going from 2400 square feet to 960 square feet has been a real adjustment, but it has brought our family closer together in ways that a larger home would not have fostered. We are challenged when it comes to entertaining and hosting large groups - we are still working through the best ways to do that in our home - but having to make decisions about how much clothing we have, how many toys or electronics or books we keep, and to really be thoughtful about the process of bringing new things into our home has been a really positive exercise and spiritual discipline.
Living closer to the downtown core of Coeur d’Alene has also been really nice. We are able to walk and bike places that we had to drive to in our last home, and while we don’t take advantage of that as much as we could, it’s a nice option.
Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had to do it over again, I think I’d work with our local contractor to design a very similar, 1000-1200 square foot home that we could stick build. I would have run natural gas to our home for hot water and heating as well instead of relying solely on electric power. The process would have taken longer, but I don’t think it would have been much more expensive - and I would have enjoyed participating in the construction process. Our home is one of the means that God is using for our sanctification, and for that I am grateful.