Once
my husband and I decided we had to move we began the process of fixing
our house up for sale and looking for our next one. This was a huge
undertaking. We chose to paint the exterior of our house by ourselves
and spent an entire summer climbing ladders to finish the job. Our
suburban home is a trendy split level with a walkout basement making 3
of the 4 sides very high. I got over my fear of being on the ladder
quickly but to this day when I look up at the house I’m shocked I ever
talked myself into doing it. We fixed siding, replaced appliances,
cleaned carpets, and painted the interior, all while keeping our 2
children occupied. The thing is that getting our home ready to sell
didn’t mean there was one ready for us to buy.
We
looked at several different homes, mostly in rural Kansas. We visited
several small towns, drove hundreds of miles of highways and other roads
that are definitely not highways. We checked out little manufactured
homes plopped down on large acreages, beautiful old farmhouses,
bungalows, and one-of-a-kind houses that seemed more like mazes than
homes. We daydreamed about chickens and goats, barns and bonfires. A
couple these homes really spoke to us.
One
was an old farmhouse that someone began renovating but left unfinished.
It was a bizarre mix of old and new with some questionable additions
that I couldn’t wrap my head around. Why would someone build a huge
living room onto an old house but not fix the very shaky foundation? Why
are there so many ceiling fans? Why the very expensive wood floor in
the kitchen when there are obvious leaks in the ceiling that need
attention first? I was willing tackle it though. I wanted to. I wanted
the wrap-around porch and crumbling silo, and the acreage surrounded by
farmland. After a little time the price on the house suddenly dropped
surprisingly low and we put a bid in on it immediately. Our bid was
accepted but within a few days we discovered an issue with the well that
our bank declared was a deal-breaker. We walked away, sad, but only for
a short while. Change happens even when you think your life just got
put on hold.
When
I found out I was pregnant with our third baby we were surprised. All
of my ambition for moving disappeared as I saw a future household in
boxes and transitional living. We took our house off the market for the
holiday season and regrouped, deciding if we couldn’t sell it quickly
after the holidays then we would just wait until after the baby was
born. The stress during this time wore me down and suddenly my dreams of
living in the country seemed insignificant compared to my dreams of
bringing my new baby home to an established house. But we kept looking
for a new home anyways.
The
last house we gave a piece of our hearts to was a two-story box painted
robin’s egg blue. No covered porch. Nothing outside to make it
exceptional or architecturally interesting, but it was genuine. It was
surrounded by miles of grassland and fields, with no windbreaks other
than a couple ancient trees, but walk inside and there were wood floors,
and a beautiful wood stove, a happy dining room, and a single bathroom
that spoke to an era when one bathroom was a luxury most folks longed
for. We walked the land around it and character crept out of the
seemingly barren landscape. My daughter ran into a dried up pond bed and
found shells that are still in her fish aquarium. We could see
ourselves planting an orchard and discussed how we could make the small
house fit our growing family. And the price was right! It was a very
good deal because it was so far away. Too far away. We left the house
realizing that we needed more than a cute house and some land. We needed
a place that captured not only our imaginations but our loyalty. The
houses we visited were special but they left a hollowness in me that I
couldn’t define or explain. I convinced my husband that we should take
our house off the market and wait. And it’s a good thing we did.
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