As you are thinking about your future McSpadden Custom home – how beautiful it is going to be – with the lovely, wooded lake-front property, the gracious view into your secluded cove, your gorgeous hard wood floors (heart of pine did you say?), the high ceilings, the custom cabinets, the infinity pool … Oh yes. You can go on and on thinking about your dream home.

So, rain. When do you start thinking about rain?

Lucky for you the McSpadden team is all over it! I visited the cottage-style lake front home this week (in the sunshine!) that McSpadden is building right now (Mike Jenkins is the project manager) and the level of care being taken to handle rain water is impressive! The house sits at the bottom of an easy slope and it is true that water finds its way downward. But I found fascinating all the details that exist dealing with rain! First you need to know that they built a huge rock filled drain gully that could carry a fast moving creek down to the lake. They build this pretty early on in the process. The house has gutters to catch the rain water of course – but these do not empty onto the ground. They all funnel into a these big tubes that carry the water to . . . you guessed it . . . the rock filled drain gully! And there is more than one tube and they hit the gully in different places so it won’t ever be overwhelmed. Next is the driveway. It obviously slopes – down to the house remember. But what is not obvious is how it has been poured to lean ever so slightly to one side. You really don’t notice it at all unless you are looking for it. But it gently guides all the water to you know where! There are curbs around parts of the driveway to lead the water correctly. And when I was there Mike was making sure that the ground being leveled near the house was done so in a way that no storm or heavy rain would be pushing dirt over the edge onto the driveway.

Rain. Details. Always thinking. McSpadden.