A week or so ago Andy mentioned his septic system delays that ended up making things better for his build/wallet in the long run. What areas of serendipity have other people had during their build?

Here's mine: We live on a farmstead across the road from where we are building, but there hasn't been livestock here in decades. We had ugly, falling apart, unused outbuildings here that I'd always hated--an old barn, an old corn elevator, and two old pig houses. We wanted to get rid of them but it's very expensive (I think we were quoted $30,000 per building to get rid of them). Two years ago, we had a mini tornado come through that collapsed the barn and did major damage to the other buildings, thankfully only trashing the roof of the house, which we were thrilled to replace as our old one was a mess. We got a little money from insurance, bought a better tractor/loader with it and set about dismantling the buildings the rest of the way over the last two summers.

Early in the process we had a guy come out and take all the usable wood out of the barn and he even paid us a bit for the privilege. He left a large beam for us to have the builder cut down and use on our fireplace at the new house.

Finally we were down to the concrete. We got someone to come crush the concrete and then haul it across the road to create our driveway (1/5 mile long) for the new house. So while it did cost money to get that done, it ended up working out. We'll only have to buy small gravel to finish it off when we're finished building. Plus, we won't have to look at those ugly buildings from the new house.

So what about the rest of you? Any serendipitous situations for your build?