Carters find wide open spaces outside Fairfield

David and Shivaun Carter own an acreage northeast of Fairfield where they are surrounded by relatives and the peaceful Iowa countryside.

They are the living embodiment of delayed gratification. The family built a new home last year on their property, but that came only after years of saving money and living in a mobile home on the same parcel of land on Okra Boulevard, a gravel road just off Salina Road.

The property the family lives on was originally purchased by Carter's grandfather and grandmother, when they bought 36 acres in Jefferson County after moving from Kansas City, Missouri. Carter's uncle has 65 acres on adjacent land. That family has one of their sons on the property. David's mother and father live in a mobile home just 800 feet from their new house.

'People refer to this as the Carter compound,” David joked.

Layout

Carter said his family's new house is 'pretty simple” with a large great room leading to an open kitchen and living room. One of the things the family wanted was a good-sized entryway.

'In the mobile hallway, getting shoes and coats on was challenging,” Carter said. 'Plus we have two big dogs, and we wanted to reduce the mud that was coming into the house.”

Downstairs, there are rooms for the couple's three daughters to play the piano and other instruments. That floor has a living room, too, with a projector to watch movies on. The daughters, aged 12, 10 and 5, didn't want their own rooms, so they're in the same one together. However, Mom and Dad knew that might change as they got older, so a door and wall can be added to the room at a later date.

The basement has a big four-panel sliding door that leads to a fantastic view of the countryside.

'The basement feels great. It's like a finished story,” David said.

The couple were not necessarily planning to have a walkout basement in the original design. Instead, they expected to build a pitched roof with an unfinished basement. But after talking to their general contractor, Judd Connor, and with earth-moving specialists, they realized a walkout basement was the most efficient option. It allows plenty of sunlight to enter the bottom story, and it saves the builders from having to dig down so far to get to the frost line.

One of the neat luxuries in the new home is that the floor is heated on the main floor. The upfront expense is higher than traditional forced air heating because the builder has to install pipes in the slab. Carter said it was his wife's idea that he eventually 'succumbed” to, though now he's glad he did.

'People say underfloor heating is very comfortable, and you don't have to keep the temperature as high,” Carter said.

David said his daughters really enjoy the new house. They're very close to one another, so as long as they're together, they could live anywhere, David said.

'Everyone feels a little refreshment to have a modern space,” David said.

Carter and his family are spending even more time in their house now that the coronavirus is keeping people cooped up indoors.

'We're a little bit solitary in general, not super social, and now we're even more so than before,” Carter said. 'I can work remotely, and the kids are thrilled to be out of school. They're busy reading and playing. Things aren't that much different.”

Wide open spaces

Carter has lived in Fairfield since he was 6 years old. He met his wife Shivaun in high school, and shortly thereafter the couple wed. The couple lived elsewhere for a while before moving back to Fairfield.

'I said that if we're going to stay here, we're going to live in the country,” Carter said. 'We're in Iowa, and there's space.”

The couple moved onto land Carter's dad left for him northeast of Fairfield. Because they did not want to take on any debt, David and Shivaun were content to live in a mobile home while they saved money for a new build. The couple expected to live in the home for just a few years, but 12 years and three children later, and they were still in the mobile home.

'A couple of years ago, my wife said, ‘We've got to make this happen,'” David said about building a new home. 'One of our kids had allergies, and needed a nice clean place.”

Now that the couple and their three children are in the new house, the old mobile home definitely seems small by comparison.

'The new one is 28 by 48, so not a huge house by any means,” David said. 'For five people plus animals, it's not much square footage, but we're making it work. Everyone's got more room.”

Contractor

The agreement the couple fashioned with their general contractor Judd Connor was that they would supply the materials and he would be in charge of construction.

'That put a lot of pressure on us, but we wanted it,” David said. 'We decided on the lumberyard. We picked out virtually everything, from the roof to the siding to the flooring to the countertops.”

Connor helped the couple make their dream a reality, while making his own suggestions along the way based on his years of experience. Connor gave the couple a list of recommended subcontractors, and the Carters followed it.

Tree farm

When Carter's grandfather and grandmother purchased the land, they had visions of running a tree farm on it. The family has continued that dream to this day.

'For years, and since the early 90s, all the Carters have been planting trees here,” David said. 'The land was CRP ground [Conservation Reserve Program]. It was over-tilled, and the government provides some subsidy to take it out of rotation.”

Carter said he and his family have planted thousands of trees, but unfortunately many of them were ash trees that were recommended to them by a forester in the 1990s. Now that the emerald ash borer is wreaking havoc on the continent's ash trees, the family will have to replant with a wider variety of species. Carter said the family planted 100 chestnut trees last fall.

'We like to call it a tree farm. We've got white pines, spruce, maples and quite a few oaks,” Carter said. 'Unfortunately, we invested heavily in ash trees, so we're having to replant. We're going to keep at it slowly but steadily.”