The House that pickle ball built

MT. PLEASANT — The pandemic gave teachers Adam and Kaila Smith a lot of time to consider all of the things they wanted to change about their house.

Once they really started looking at all the upgrades and changes they wanted, it only seemed logical to also look at the cost of building a custom home.

While Adam says that the numbers were not exactly close, the appeal in having the home of their dreams won-out over the numerous renovation projects that would be necessary for their old house to really feel like home.

With logic on their side and big dreams waiting to be realized, the Smiths dove into building their dream home.

They moved from their 2,300 square foot home, to a 900 square foot rental until their five bedroom, three and half bath, 4,200 square foot home of their dreams came to fruition.

They researched numerous floor plans online until they found one they could begin customizing to perfection.

“Everything is customized,” Adam said.

They bought their lot near Mt. Pleasant County Club in June 2020, broke ground in December 2020, and moved in February 2022, after an 18 month stay in their tiny rental.

But, how did two teachers afford such a large, beautiful, perfectly customized home such as this?

“Dave Ramsey is how,” Adam said. “We’ve followed the baby steps and they led us to a place where this could be a reality for us.”

Dave Ramsey teaches a financial literacy program which encourages baby steps such as: establishing an emergency fund, paying off small debts and rolling over the payments to the next smallest until debt-free, investing, and saving for the future.

“If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else,” Dave Ramsey says.

So, that’s what the Smiths decided to do; live like no one else.

In 2018, they called into Dave Ramsey’s podcast The Ramsey Show to do their “debt-free scream,” celebrating paying off their debt using Ramsey’s method.

As the couple continued to build their home with Jason Barda and Paul Kennel of Progressive Home Builders, the choices for ultimate customization were numerous.

“I didn’t want to compromise,” Adam said.

So, he lived like no one else and decided he would coach more pickle ball if it meant that they could have the house they really wanted.

They were able to build a home with beautiful bathrooms, geometry variety, beautiful wallpaper accents, and even a perfect height oven mounted in the wall of the kitchen.

In Feb. 2022, Adam and Kaila moved into this dream home with their three daughters Alia, 8, Adalee, 6, and Alivia, 2, and of course their dog, Louie.

As Adam sat in a chair with his back to their doorway, he talked about why that was his favorite seat in the house.

“I like to sit here, because I can see all the different ceiling heights,” he said. “I love everything about this house. The shiplap, textures, lots of natural lighting.”

“We’re not tall people, but we like tall ceilings,” Kaila said.

Adam even told an interesting story about the shiplap in the stairwell.

While it looks beautiful, and no one would guess it was unplanned, it actually came to be purely by accident.

When the fridge was installed on the other side of that wall, it was too deep and the dry wall needed to be cut, so, Adam decided shiplap was the perfect way to cover the mistake.

“I like it better this way,” he said as he tapped on the wall to show where you could tell the refrigerator sat.

“It is weird having a house where there aren’t many things you dislike,” Adam said.

Despite the Smiths home being complete, Adam still loves and coaches pickle ball.

In fact, just outside of their extra-large two stall garage, a fence surrounds an extra area of cement that only needs the lines painted to become Adam’s personal pickle ball court.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com