I think the idea of business cards/note cards describing the materials and the build is pretentious. If people want to know, they will ask.

They say if your marriage can survive building a house, it can survive anything so we opted to wait until the house is done to get married. :) Our plan is to have our house warming party, invite all friends, family, etc, and when they get there...."SURPRISE! You're at our wedding too!" We've both been married before, so neither of us want a huge production, churchy wedding. We're wearing the t-shirts with the wedding dress and tux printed on them, (super fancy!) and we plan to simply have our officiant there to "marry" us at certain time that will be noted "don't miss a special announcement at 4pm" on the invites, and we'll cater and have an open bar.

What FUN SunnyDays!! Congratulations. Hope the wait isn't much longer!

Glad I asked about the cards. Needed some sense talked into me.

This reminds me...

Plan the housewarming party!

We've been in for over six months, but we are still hanging artwork and getting our library out of boxes, and I still have many, many plants to get out of pots and into the ground, a raised vegetable garden to build, and... Naturally, with a small house and a large family, an outdoor gathering would certainly be best, but we need to plant lawn, finish our patio and clean up our woodland trails. Clearly if we wait for things to be finished, we'll never be ready!

Accepting the fact that it will still be a work in progress, I have to figure out how to handle multiple cars arriving without letting our livestock guardian dog escape (Great Pyrenees don't "run away," they just think the surrounding countryside is their home territory and have to do a perimeter check!) At least we have plenty of room for parking once they're in.

Then there's the jam session we've discussed. How do we blend jazz, folk, and classical musicians? And a family that seems to think musicians are all just a bunch of showoffs? Perhaps we need several parties?

The good thing is, as a graphic designer/illustrator, I already have the invitations designed and ready to print. We just need to figure out the party!

Have it with everything installed but the carpeting and you'll be fine.

I agree that some people will bring gifts no matter what you call it! :) I like the wording of "Open House" a little better if you are not really young and this is not your first house ever. Our friends (technically my husband's coworker & her husband) recently had an open house -- it was the first house they bought but they're around age 30 so a housewarming party seemed a little silly since they already had all of the household items they needed. Anyway, it was really fun -- they had lots of appetizers and everyone took a quick tour of the house and then just socialized for a couple of hours. A few people brought gifts and some didn't. We actually didn't bring a gift but planned to...so a few days later we brought them a gift since we came up with a great idea for what to get them after seeing their house and figuring out something they could actually use.

I wouldn't put the business cards or project descriptions out. I don't find it pretentious, but most people really won't care about the details, and if they are genuinely curious, they'll ask. People just love seeing new homes and the overall look and feel of them. ;) I do think you should give casual tours, though, and feel free to throw in a few details here and there about projects or special details in each room.

My plan is to throw a party and not call it anything! Well, maybe we will call it a Summer Party (if that's when we are complete). All of the friends/family we are inviting know we are building and will realize this is their first time seeing it (well, maybe not family's first time seeing it, but you get what I mean). Many of our friends bring hostess type gifts (wine, napkins, candle, etc) to our parties but I think that not calling it anything other than a party will eliminate any pressure of bringing a gift. I agree with everyone else about the notecards...

If we're finished in time, we're planning on having a New Year's Day party. Being it's in FL, it will be indoor/outdoor.

Our situation is different in that we don't know very many people in our area, so we couldn't really have much of an open house party. The friends we do have, and most of our family members have seen the house during all different stages of construction since we have lived on-site for the whole build.

That being said, we would like to invite the folks from the little church we attend to see the house, as they've been a tremendous source of support. I still haven't figured out a tactful way to have an open house without it coming off as 'Look what we did!'. I know many of them are dying of curiosity to see it, though. Also, we could have 50 people or more if we just announced an open house.

I hope you have a great open house party to share and celebrate your home! I agree with not putting the cards out. But, I think it might be really interesting to have photos of the build in progress, like those that are shared on these monthly threads. What do other people think of that, is there a downside?

I think that's a great idea, omelet. Even people who don't care about the specific tradespeople could enjoy seeing a timeline of the process. I'd suggest keeping it to the the big picture, though. We're the only crazy people who enjoy seeing every nitty gritty detail!

Mushcreek could you have a thank you party? If you feel your church members are a source of support it would be lovely to acknowledge that with a party. And even more so in your case, pick one of the outreach missions of your church and ask people to support that in some way at your party. If it was before the holidays I'd say have people bring a gift for a child but you'll know better how to tie it in with your party.

We had an open house party about 6 weeks after we moved in. Like you, I felt weird about the idea of getting gifts so we tried to keep it super casual. Our new house was built out in the country, and my hubby is from London (but he desperately aspires to be a southerner) so we called it "Will's Country Boy BBQ". So much fun!

I'm going to compile one of those picture books that you can have made by places like Snapfish, showing the highlights of the build process. I'll leave it out where visitors can see it, but I won't shove it in their face. If the topic turns to construction (as it invariably has), I'll hand them the book.

mushcreek, don't know what kind of church you attend, but maybe you could host something like an Easter cookout.

Some folks at the church have suggested a 'blessing' ceremony of some sort, with a pot-luck lunch. They don't do anything in our church without a pot-luck meal! I would suggest that house-warming gifts be made to the church, since we already have more stuff than we need. 99% of them would obey that.

Is this your first home? If yes housewarming party is in order.

If not I'd want the get together tied to a specific event. Superbowl is the only upcoming event I can think of off hand.

I'd separate family from acquaintance as well.

Just my 2cents!

Mushcreek, my SIL had a 'christening' for the home, and the entertainment space she had placed on the accompanying dock, in a small historic town last fall...may have been more common if it had still been a working dock of decades ago where the priest would have blessed the family, hopes of prosperity etc.

It was more a thank you gathering with a gorgeous lunch. Family and extended family, closest friends, a few of the very patient neighbors who had endured the construction, her GC and his family, architect, some of the very helpful tradespeople. The priest worded his blessing very thoughtfully and didn't actually bless the house, or dock ;), but the people who would come together, love each other, and enjoy it. No gifts - and a very successful party, lots of fun.

We are going to host a "housewarming" BBQ when our place is done. We will probably call it "The Linoleum Palace Coming Out Ball" or something similar and cheeky. Most of the attendees will have attended our wedding 2 years ago and I doubt most will bring gifts beyond maybe some champagne or something, which is always welcomed! We entertain a LOT so I doubt people will treat it differently than most of our other larger parties. We will probably invite our GC/PM and architect as I can confidently say they've actually kind of become friends at this point!

In regards to the explanation cards- I do think that's a bit pretentious, however I am planning a gallery wall for our entertainment room that includes the history of the house and some pre-construction photos. Our house is over 160 years old and we've found old photos of it from the 30s, newspaper clippings referencing it and some of the old inhabitants and have traced the property records all the way back to 1848 when the original farm was sold and cut up into residential lots. People usually have questions about the history of the house the first time they see it (it's quite dissimilar to most other houses in Brooklyn,) so I think that will actually be a nice talking piece. Plus, when someone asks "oh do you know anything about the history of the house?" I can just point them downstairs to the wall instead of retelling the story for the 50th time ;)

Months before we even found our current house I invited tons of people to a 30th birthday party for my husband including people who would fly in from out of town and stay with us. It was sort of like an unofficial college reunion. Then we found our house and closed on it less than a month before the party. I couldn't reschedule or cancel because people were flying in. I was stressed for that month but it ended up being a good thing because it forced us to unpack everything quickly and to make decisions we would have held off on for far too long.

We're planning a celebration. Planning to invite GC, subs and their spouses (families if the weather is still warm enough to have the pool open -- will hire a lifeguard, too!) as well as our friends, bankers, realtors (land purchase, sale of our old home), architects, draftsmen, etc. Need to acknowledge and celebrate the contribution each of them made to making our dream come true. Many have commented that they never get to see the whole thing put together, and I'd like to give them that opportunity as well as for them to share the pride in their craftsmanship with their family and potential clients. It will probably cost us 1% of our build budget (catering w/a local restaurant), but we're looking forward to it! Most know about it and have indicated they're excited as well.

All great ideas. We're in our mid/late 30s, married for 10 years, and not first time homeowners. I'm not opposed to people bringing gifts, but after a wedding shower, a welcome home party, a baby shower, and a baby "sprinkle" over the last few years, I don't want anyone to feel obligated to bring any more gifts. (Though I'm with Dayglo, stock my bar if you want!)

I've been posting our build on Instagram with plans to convert the pictures to a Chatbook. I'll have one or two copies of that floating around.

Now it's a matter of when.... maybe it'll be the motivation we need to unpack and get settled like others mentioned!

A housewarming is one of the few times that etiquette permits you to throw a party for yourself. Of course, any intimation that you are expecting anything other than the social company of the invitees is right out.

We had one at the end of our first phase of construction. A mix of friends, neighbors, and the builders.