This post is one step in a live build. The Post Falls ADU tracker shows where the whole project stands today.

July 23, 2026

Why am I doing this?

By Russell Mann — Post Falls, Idaho

I'll answer it straight, because it's personal before it's anything else.

I have two adult sons who live with me. Both are working, and both of their girlfriends are working, adults who also live with their parents. My oldest is on the path towards marriage, and the biggest issue blocking them from starting their own family is affording a place to live. It isn't for lack of trying. The math just doesn't math anymore.

When I was his age I bought a house in Post Falls. It was about the same as rent, but I became an owner. The financial opportunities that ownership created for me were incredible. Building equity, starting a business from a line of credit, and now renting it to a veteran and his family.

I want my sons to be able to own, and to start building their wealth and their families. The market is making that harder every year.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's your kids. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's the young couple you know, both working, who still can't find a place of their own that makes any sense. Around here a lot of us are feeling the same thing at once. The people we love are ready for the next step, and the housing to take it isn't there.

And it's not just here. This year the typical first-time buyer in America is 40 years old, a record high. In 2000 they were 32.

People have been building backyard homes around here for a while now. What changed this summer is the answer a homeowner gets when they ask. As of July 1, building an accessory dwelling unit (a second, smaller home) on a single-family lot is a right in any Idaho city over 10,000 people, and the city has to allow it. It isn't something a city can simply turn down anymore. Before, whether you could build one came down to local rules that could rule it out. Post Falls, where I live, is one of those cities. (SB 1354 signed 2026-03-31, effective 2026-07-01, Idaho Code § 67-6541.) On paper that's a real change. Whether it changes anything in real life, for regular people, is a different question, and nobody really knows yet.

So I'm going to find out the only honest way I know. I'm building one. On my own property, starting from near zero, writing down every step, every cost, and every wall I hit.

I'm not building this so one of my sons can move in. Maybe someone's kid ends up living in it, maybe not. That isn't the point. This law rests on a simple theory: let people build more homes, and housing gets more affordable for everyone. If that holds, then more homes going up around here opens options for people like my sons somewhere in the market, not only in my backyard. The solution doesn't have to be this exact house. It has to be more houses.

What I'm after is to learn whether that theory actually holds on the ground in Kootenai County, or only on paper. I also want to help work out how to make it deliver, because a right you can't actually use isn't worth much. It starts with building one and documenting it so anyone can follow along.

I am not an expert. I have never built a house. I don't know yet what my lot qualifies for or what the city is going to tell me. Sara Blakely, who built Spanx from nothing, has said not to be intimidated by what you don't know, that it can be your greatest strength because it makes you do things differently than everyone else. That's the bet I'm making here. I'm going to learn it in the open and show the parts that go wrong, not only the parts that go right. I think a beginner writing down the real process, confusion and all, is more useful than an expert who has forgotten what was ever confusing about it.

This goes wider than my backyard. It runs through my family, my county, my state, and the question sitting under all of it: will the next generation get to own a home, or not? Each of those is its own piece, and I'll get to them one at a time.

So this is the first in a series on why I'm doing this. More are coming: where I came from, what's actually broken in Kootenai County, what the new law does and doesn't fix, and what any of it means for our kids.

And this is where you come in, if you want to. I don't know what I don't know. If you're carrying the same worry, or you have already been through this, or you can see something I can't, tell me. Leave a comment below, or message the Facebook page. If you would rather keep it private, use the contact form to send me a note. This is a record, and it's also a conversation. The people going through the same thing will make it better than I can on my own.

Thanks for being here at the start.