My Other Life: Tara Deck, home builder

If she knew then what she knows now, she might not have done it. Tara Deck, owner of home-based Tara Lea Esthetics in Chetwynd, British Columbia, Canada, built her own 3,600-square-foot, five-bedroom, ranch-style home on a beautiful five-acre lot. OK, her husband helped — a lot — and she received invaluable aid from her children, family, and friends. It took two years to build, but her dream house is now a reality.

“Before we started this journey we had looked at real estate for three years and found nothing we loved in our price range,” says Deck. “So we started actively looking into building ourselves, and our friends very kindly sold us the lot. My hubby had worked in construction here and there and he is really good at this type of thing.” As for Deck, she grew up on a farm and learned as she helped her parents renovate their farmhouse.

One of the main challenges she and her husband faced was time. “We both work during the week and built on weekends and in our spare time, so sometimes it didn’t go as quickly as we wanted it to,” she says. “The other big challenge was keeping the end result in focus and remembering why we were doing this when we were tired and working in the freezing cold.”

Still, the experience was overwhelmingly positive. “I enjoyed watching the house plans I designed come to life and be something that you could truly touch and see,” she says. “The sense of accomplishment is still surreal. I imagine it will take time to really have it sink in that we have done it. People thought we were crazy taking on such a big project, but it worked for us and I think we are stronger as a couple and family because of it.”