In 2018, couple Carrie and Nate LaChance — the former is an Instagram model with 1.1 million followers — moved to the Dallas area from Orlando and bought a lakefront acreage for $260,000. Their goal: to build a $3 million “Castle” home, construction of which began in 2020 and the process of which Carrie documented on Instagram — like pioneering it and choosing a dazzling 24-karat gold sink. They even hoped to fit a gym and movie theater inside. The Washington Post reports that four years after its inception, the couple’s home still isn’t finished. Thanks to a number of challenges, including pandemic-era labor and supply chain shortages — not to mention Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the house has neither its blue sandstone case nor the its windows and the cost has been inflated by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wood and nails, for example, cost more than expected. Plus, they took out an extra $100,000 last fall for unexpected expenses. by the end of the year, those funds ran out. Carrie and Nate LaChance set out to build their dream home in the Dallas area, until multiple factors from COVID and Russia’s war in Ukraine keep their dream of living there on the horizon. The Washington Post via Getty Images To this day, the Castle remains unfinished. The Washington Post via Getty Images The couple has faced major costs and doesn’t know when they’ll be able to move. FacebookCarrie is an Instagram model with over 1 million followers.Instagram /@carrielachance “It was like a chain reaction,” said Joshua Correa, the LaChances builder and owner of Divino Homes. “Everybody started charging more — for everything.” Correa added that building a basic house used to take five months — now it’s at least twice that — and he has to book workers weeks in advance, among other reasons, to pour concrete. Another annoyance: he told the Washington Post that the couple’s planks of wood needed for the Castle’s wooden frame required ordering the wood three months in advance. The paper notes that lumber in particular has faced dire supply chain problems during most of COVID, with Korea saying prices for lumber have nearly doubled since 2020. Adding insult to injury, higher natural gas prices, especially since Russia invaded Ukraine. Garret Cockrell, whose Big D Lumber supplied the couple’s wood, told the outlet that during COVID he was getting 100 calls every day from contractors trying to get wood products. It has been forced to turn away new customers — and its costs have doubled, especially in fuel costs. Prices have dropped at LaChances. Their initial lumber budget was $105,000. as of June 2022, that amount has jumped to $177,000. Joshua Correa has felt the pinch of supply chain issues and labor shortages — and it has fallen on his clients, the LaChances. The Washington Post via Getty Images When Carrie moves in, whenever that day comes, she wants to watch ‘Game of Thrones’ in the home theater.Instagram / @carrielachance Meanwhile, the cost of the Silver Mist stone was originally projected at $27,500 — in June, the cost rose to $39,000. But with delays, the stone, which came from an Oklahoma quarry facing its own labor shortage, has yet to be installed along the structure’s exterior. The devices have added an extra dose of annoyance, in part due to vendors facing chip shortages making household staples harder to source. For example, the couple ordered their refrigerator in September 2021 — and it won’t arrive until March 2023. They had a total initial budget of $65,000 for their necessary appliances, which ballooned to $78,000 two months ago. There’s no word on when the house, whose structure is characterized by multiple turrets, will be completed, but the couple remains optimistic — and construction is still underway. Carrie herself noted that, after so long in the making, design plans have changed. This includes switching to a gold color scheme from a white one. “The more you think about things you think, ‘Maybe I want this in,’” he told the paper. However, the couple told the paper they already know what they’ll be doing on their first night there: a “Game of Thrones” marathon at home.
