01/01/2023
Welcome to Pleasant Builders of NC, LLC
(I am probably a year overdue in documenting this, but I just haven’t had much down time in the last year, so here goes!!)
2020-studied for and passed Building Contractor exam on 12/1/2020
2021-purchased/subdivided/rezoned peach orchard for new “major subdivision” in Coats, NC
2022-A year of blessings, lots of prayer, tears, opened doors, mistakes made, learned lessons, meetings with mentors, constant learning, lots more sweat blood and tears, and praising God the whole way through all of the Good, Bad, and Ugly!!
“She believed she could so she did💖🙌🏻💖🙌🏻💖”…
That is such a simple statement but yet has so much meaning for me, and is a huge part of my testimony. To say that this past year has been a dream come true is an understatement…between Haley and Michael getting engaged and planning their dream wedding, to gaining a son-in-law and being able to watch their dream winter wedding come to life at Southern Grace Farms in Angier, NC, all while nursing and growing Pleasant Builders of NC, LLC, it has been an amazing year and a complete whirlwind! Who would have ever thought that this would be possible?? But I can tell you as I have said all throughout my life, there IS POWER in PRAYER and anything is possible if you believe the verse,” I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13… my life has been anything but a bed of roses, and nothing has been handed to me on a SilverPlatter. Far from it, BUT GOD!! He has always been FAITHFUL🙌🏻
I started working at Domino’s Pizza when I was 14 years old and I’ve worked ever since. I have made some good decisions, but I have also made some bad decisions. I will say that the good decisions have been out of obedience to the Lord, and one of those decisions was submitting to my husband and moving back to his home area in Harnett County. I use the word “submit” because that’s exactly what I did… I don’t like the word submit because I am stubborn, but I know that “submitting” is what God calls me to do with regard to obeying my husband, and I know that being obedient to the Lord has never caused me or anyone else to fail. I will also say that if you have a husband like Jeremy, then it is easier to be submissive because you know he’s not going to steer you in the wrong direction, and there is a mutual respect and loyalty we have, simply because of our relationship with Jesus. For those of you that don’t know this part of our story, In 2015 when Jeremy told me he wanted to move back towards home, I was anything but on-board. From the time that he mentioned it until the day we put our house on the market was about nine months. I will never forget the sinking feeling I felt when he told me what he felt we should do…he asked me to start praying about it, so I began praying. I prayed about it every day but I will admit in the beginning I wasn’t praying about it the way I should’ve been praying about it until about six months in. I remember very specifically on a long drive back from a Baltimore Orioles trip where the Lord audibly spoke to me (going through some back roads in Virginia ) and told me that we would be selling our house and that we would move back “home” and that it would be a blessing. I remember my heart racing and telling myself I was just hearing things and in about 15 or 20 minutes, while Michael and Haley were asleep in the backseat, I heard it again… That time I felt an overwhelming peace. At that point I knew it was time to put the house on the market and it sold within the first few hours of going live on July 1, 2016. I had no idea on that day where we were going to live because our closing was in 18 days. The Lord has opened every door since then, including the very first one through our dear friend Joe Gardener who found us a place to live six days before we were about to be homeless. Trey and Kim and Mickey Jr. came to pack us up, and helped us get in our new rental. I had no idea that day as we drove here in that moving truck where we would live long term, or that we Would ever get the chance to build a custom home, and I certainly never dreamed that we would find a piece of property as beautiful as the one we left in Franklin County… the one that WAS our dream home on a dream piece of prime hunting property surrounded by 200 acres we had hunted on, ridden 4-wheelers on, and made so many memories on. Jeremy was in charge of that house and meeting all the subs. I was busy with my nursing career, and he literally handled it all. It was the most beautiful home, 2063 sf Cape Cod style home on 5.25 acres that the Lord provided for us after the 2008 recession (that’s the only way we could have afforded that land). But still, I submitted and prayed and trusted God every day, and I had peace that even though we were leaving what I thought was our forever home and our amazing church family at Faith Baptist Church in Youngsville, I knew we were in Gods hands. Not only did He find us a place to rent, and land to purchase, He also gave us the vision of our home, and he brought everyone else our way that we needed to make it a reality over the next 2 years. The Lord also allowed me to be be project manager on our new custom home from beginning to end, which turned out to be experience I needed when applying for my building contractors license. We moved to 193 Walt Johnson Rd on 7-18-16 and we lived there exactly 24 months.
October 2016 I walked into Staples to buy a tablet of graph paper, which I still have to this day and that’s where it all began and I could see the visions the Lord had in the future for our family.… I spent countless hours drawing house plans and elevations, and I knew I had been bitten by the GC bug (for our home but never dreamed I’d do it for anyone else)… And the rest is history! We designed and built our new house, spending every Friday night “date night” on the couch with takeout (usually from Habachi) sitting on the couch at our rental house on Walt Johnson Road. We also had dreams for a detached garage (i.e. Jeremys shop with a covered carport that could be used for family gatherings down the road), but knew we would have to wait and do that down the road. We finished the plans for the house and took them to Daniel Owen for him to perfect, and he brought to life our home♥️. I got that same tablet of graph paper out a year after we moved in and drew the plans for JP’s “shop” and we built it one step at a time starting in October 2019 and got our CO in March 2020. After being asked many times, I decided to pursue my Building Contractor license (and some of y’all have heard that story from 12/2020 which was another example of Philippians 4:13 “ I can do all things through Christ to strengthens to me” and “she believed she could , so she did”).
I’ve been told many times I’m a woman with a lot of grit… and looking back on my life, I guess it’s true. The best thing anyone has ever done for me in the past was to tell me that I couldn’t do something, because then I would put my nose to the grind stone and get it done, or die trying! That is my daddy in me♥️. Nursing school was the first example of that… there was a whole lot of sweat blood and tears that went in to that program, where the best, most experienced RN’s came from in the mid-90’s. Any of my fellow peers that were Wake Tech Grads in the 90’s can attest that. I started the program and halfway through I was two points shy of what I needed to pass Dr. Mobley‘s Advanced Anatomy and Physiology. I cried because I had given it my all but my all was not enough. I didn’t cry often because I was too prideful for that, but when I would, my daddy would always say, just do what you’ve got to do to get through this next exam, hang in there and don’t let it beat you, give it your all every single day because “when you get those initials (RN) behind your name, you can write your own ticket”, Gods got you!! So I sucked it up, reevaluated my study habits, made changes, applied to the program again and started my second go round. If I would start to say I’m worried about this or that, he would shut it down and make me change my perception and demand that I change my words into positive words. He didn’t accept failures and promised that the Lord would see me through if I were seeking HIM. Well I did it, and not only did I do it, but I did it and was unexpectedly pregnant in the most difficult rotation of my entire clinical experience. I was
on the admissions floor at Dorothea Dix. The smell is something I’ll never forget, and I could only make it with the help of Jesus and 12.5 mg of Phenergan q 6. I graduated May 1997 and next stop was the big exam…I took and passed my NCLEX exam on the first try, at 75 questions, in pre-term labor, while supposed to be on bedrest, contracting every 3 to 5 minutes, dilated and effaced (but y’all know how important my baby was to me {s*x unknown until I delivered} , so I didn’t take that risk until I hit 37+2 and U/S confirmed baby was good to go at any time. I also had my hospital bag packed in case I needed to leave there and go Down the road to Raleigh community to deliver🤗). Having a baby against all odds was my number two grit experience and number three and four were fighting metastatic thyroid cancer and deciding to get my GC license was #5 on my list. Studying for my Building Contractors license meant that I had to say “no” to a lot of things in 2020, and at times I felt like passing the exam would be next to impossible. I could hear my daddy in my head saying all those things that he did to cheer me on through nursing school. As most of you know my father-in-law and 2nd daddy, was a very well-known and successful carpenter and had been his entire life in and around Coats. I would love to know how much of the property in Coats North Carolina alone that was NOT touched by him at one point or another over the year’s. I will never forget the look of surprise and pride the day we went to tell him that I was studying to get my GC license. And fast forward to that December 1st day in 2020, the Lord knew I had one shot to pass it because if I didn’t pass it on my first try, then my father-in-law, who was fighting for his life in the COVID ICU, was never going to hear me tell him that I did it. By the grace of God, and on the first try, I passed my exam for BUILDING CONTRACTOR, officially licensed in Commercial and Residential Building 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻. I called the nurses station after I left the testing facility in Fayetteville and was able to have a conversation with him that I will never forget, one where he cried and I cried and he told me how proud he was of me and that he was so thankful that “the Pleasant name would continue on and on in the building business”. He passed away 6 days later and that was the last day I got to speak with him. On that day I had no idea what I would be building, where I would be building or how we would fund it, but I knew my Father in Heaven DID KNOW!
After Christmas 2020 I had a total abdominal hysterectomy and couldn’t drive or work for six weeks. Jeremy would take me out driving looking for property that was for sale until I would get too lightheaded or nauseated to ride in the car anymore.
We looked at this property and that property but nothing popped up. We were specifically looking for one small lot that I could build a starter home on, because that’s all we could afford. Well, closed door after closed door, in January 2021 a dear friend of mine told me about the peach Orchard in Coats that had been for sale for quite a while. This peach Orchard had a 1906 farmhouse on it and the old original railroad building that had been moved to that property on 10 acres of land. It just so happen to be right around the corner from my in-laws old house in Coats where I had spent so much time over the year’s. The place that my father-in-law had done all of the renovations on. I even remember when the peach trees were planted for the peach orchard years ago. Well God did it again, and through His provision and blessing, we were able to get that land, and we started going through the process of subdividing the land and created a “major subdivision”. I had to present at the planning board a couple times and answered tons of questions, and then I had to present in front of the town Council, and by Gods grace, we won them over as well and they were able to see value in this new subdivision that God had given me a vision for. Part of it had to be re-zoned which was a benefit to the town, and there were all these hoops to go through because it was considered a “major subdivision” (being more than 6 lots, a total of 7). We finally got the ok on Lot 1 and started digging footings November 21, 2021. Now how in the world did we go from looking for less than an acre all the way TO THIS…BUT GOD!!!! won’t He do it?!?
I had been by that peach Orchard a million times since 1991, but never saw this coming. Well it has taken us some time but Jeremy has always reminded me that anything worth having doesn’t come easy, and that it takes time and sweat…lots of sweat!
I went around and took lots of pictures of houses and drew more floorplans and took that all to the architect, who brought this first house to life. “The Whitley” is perfectly sitting on lot 1, at 473 S. Lincoln St in Coats, at what I call “Peachtree Bluffs”. I drove out there one morning a while back and took some pictures and I can honestly say that when I looked up at the sky that morning, I could see God shining down on me and I could feel HIS presence, and the presence of both of my daddy‘s… Jeremy‘s daddy, and mine♥️ and I know that they are proud because I have felt their presence everyday when I go out there to check on my jobs in the evenings. I finished it in June 2022 and closed on it July 19th🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
We started house #2 in September 2022 and it will be ready soon, early 2023. I still pinch myself often, because this opportunity is more than I’ve ever dreamed of♥️. I am so thankful for the village that God has blessed me with because I would be NOTHING WITHOUT THEM! And they all know who they are, from believing in me and encouraging me to take the step forward in pursuing everything it took to get my GC license and for telling me that they believed in me, to writing letters of recommendation for the NCLBGC to accept my application, to the recommendations and advice regarding starting the business and how not to make mistakes that he had seen being made so that I would be successful , to encouraging me to come up with a business name, Secretary of State and creating an LLC, to schooling me in QuickBooks, and believing in ME♥️ … they all know who they are and each one of them knows how grateful I am for the part they have shared in my journey. But there are 2 In this village that I have to say a special thanks to, because they live with me and they put up with my crazy ideas, and they are the ones that keep everything going at home and remind me of things that I forget many times… They have gone and measured or re-measured, counted blocks, They have ridden with me just to “look at something just 1 more time so I’d feel better about said decision”, (probably rolling their eyes at each other when I wasn’t looking🤣), they have looked up things, gone to Lowe’s and gotten me out of a bind at the last minute, helped me load up materials in the rain/cold weather, they have shopped, cleaned, cooked or picked up food, and have started fixing MY PLATE (and this has been hard for me because I have always fixed theirs), taken up my slack when I was falling behind on my own responsibilities for our family…and the list goes on and on. Jeremy and Haley both have extremely busy lives of their own, but they are just a fine example of the body of Christ, Extensions of my hands and feet, unconditional love, Quick to forgive when I’m sassy, and they are everything that a #1 fan looks like…That whole encompassing attitude of “no body better than YOU”. And let’s not forget our new Son, Michael… last off-season and this off-season he literally offers to lend a hand every.single.time we see him or talk to him. He has also encouraged me and helps lift all of the heavy/awkward stuff, and is always happy to help out! The only payment they have received is my love and appreciation, sometimes I’ve been a little late with the verbal appreciation but I’ve always tried to make up for it… But man are they earning some jewels for their crown that they will get when they go to Heaven, because they have done some amazing things and I am incredibly humbled and so very thankful for this journey that we are all on together! Most of all, I’m so thankful and humbled for the way the Lord has provided this opportunity and for my village. It truly DOES take a village♥️ and I am so very thankful for each of them. ALL GLORY TO JESUS!!!
Edited to add:
I am still very wet behind the ears and have lots to learn, but I love learning and I’m not too proud to admit when I make a mistake. I’m thankful for fellow GC’s and other professionals in the business who have taken time to answer my questions and to teach me.
🌟Lot 1/house #1 “The Whitley” is in the books for Pleasant Builders of NC, LLC at the Peach Orchard. We got an offer the day it went on the market and closed on it 7-19-22 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
🌟August-November reconstructed a 12x20 shed into my new office and what JP calls my she-shed, and a beautiful new desk designed and built by none other than Sorrells Cabinets😍🌸🍀🍄🪺🥰
🌟House #2/lot 3 “The Whitley II” at the Peach Orchard- broke ground in September 2022, and hope to have a CO by end of January 2023!
✅ footings dug 8-29-22
✅ footings passed 8-29-22
✅ poured footings 8-31-22
✅ started foundation 9-3-22
✅ foundation complete 9-5-22
(😍😍😍Lost track of dates here because we were hot and heavy in HORRELL WEDDING PLANNING😍😍😍)
✅ inspection passed
✅ framing competed
✅ rough-Ins and roof done
✅ 4 trade inspection passed
✅ Insulation/Sheetrock done
✨✨int/ext trim, cabinets and vinyl up next✨✨
🌟🌟🌟Up next-Haley and Michael’s house and continuing to PRAISE GOD for a beautiful wedding day 12-3-2022😍😍😍
This mamma can.not.wait!!🌟🌟🌟
