Photos: 10 things to love about building a forever home
Alisha Jelken looks out the window of her family’s modern farmhouse. Off in the distance, her husband is harvesting corn. Jeff tends to 750 acres and 4,000 hogs in rural Le Mars while she teaches at North High School in Sioux City. They settled in this peaceful, private location with their daughters, Aubrey, 3, and Autumn 1, living within view of his parents’ farm and joke they could communicate with light signals shining across the brown, barren fields. “I had so much fun building this house,” Alisha said. “The only bad thing is that you really have to stay within budget.” They made sensible decisions designing their home, imagining a place where they can live even when they’re old and gray.
1. Aging in Place
“I never thought we would be able to build a house,” Alisha said. When she found out they could, she went over all the details with a fine-toothed comb to make sure this home would be livable decades from now. There are no stairs into the house – no steps in the garage or to the front door. Everything is open with doorways wide enough to easily fit through with a walker or a wheelchair. “We’ll never sell this because this is our farmland. We’re never going to move because the farm’s never going to move.”
2. Open House
The living room flows right into the dining room and kitchen. “This is perfect for our family of four,” she said. “We have our old rocking chairs like we’re grandma and grandpa already.” They can host friends and family for food and games and no one’s left out – no matter where they sit.
3. Swap Style
The broad mantel above the fireplace offers plenty of room to display seasonal décor that livens up the home from Thanksgiving to Easter and every holiday in between.
4. Extended Entertaining
The dining room leads out to a concrete patio with a wrought iron railing, which was a must after dealing with the upkeep of wood decking in the past. The kids love it too. The pavement is usually covered with sidewalk chalk.
5. Grilled Goodness
Jeff is the grill master of the house and enjoys cooking outdoors on the Big Green Egg. The charcoal grills sears steaks to perfection in four minutes or less.
6. Center Focus
“This is where we are all the time,” Alisha said. The open concept lets her keep an eye on the kids while she’s making dinner and the warm, inviting space works great for bigger gatherings too. “When we have everybody here, like for Jeff’s family when they come for Christmas, we have enough seating because we have the big table and the island.”
7. Modern Function
Beechwood cabinetry with soft-close drawers provides plenty of storage to stay organized even with two kids under the age of 3 in the home.
8. Growing Room(s)
Three bedrooms are located down one hallway on the main floor, which was convenient when Autumn was a newborn. There are two more bedrooms downstairs that the girls will be able to grow into and they can move to the basement for more privacy in their teens.
9. Multi-function Man Cave
Jeff’s fish, pheasants and deer get displayed in the walkout basement, which serves as a multi-functional living space. “This is where we have Christmas,” Alisha said. She moves the girls’ playhouse out of the way to put up a tree that gets decorated with pheasant feathers. With the extra rooms in down here, they’re able to host family from out of town and there’s a card table behind the sectional for playing games like Yuker, Pitch and Horse.
10. Happy Hunter
The three-stall garage is heated and semi-finished to be able to host everything from card parties to Thanksgiving dinner. It’s also Jeff’s second “man cave,” complete with a popcorn machine. His hunting trophies are displayed on one wall and a flat screen TV is on another.
Alisha Jelken looks out the window of her family’s modern farmhouse. Off in the distance, her husband is harvesting corn. Jeff tends to 750 ac…
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