From house to home. . . and so it begins (again)

We are in a big transition here, as I have hinted several times lately. We have purchased a new house (in a random spur of the moment decision) and are officially in go-mode. Our current home, lovingly called 885 by me and Ricky,  we purchased almost exactly 4 years ago (yes it has been 4 YEARS already, give or take 3 weeks or so).

885 has been my dream home. All my growing up years I wanted to live in a square white house with a comfy front porch with a swing and rocking chairs. So to say this was my dream house is no doubt the truth.

When we first purchased 885, it was no looker. But we both could see a little gem underneath all that roughness. And a gem it has indeed turned out to be. You might wonder why then, we are moving since we so treasure this little house we call home. Well, all I can say is that God just closed that door and opened another one. And while we are sentimental about leaving this current house, we are also excitedly anticipating this next step!

885 was our first experience "flipping". It has been very rewarding to take a place that was in such a state of neglect and bring it back to life. This post is getting lengthy (and that was not my intent) but I can't write this post without giving a little story about how this move came to be.

For about a year now, we have been planning an addition to 885. We've taken great care in planning out all the little details. Over the spring and early summer we had a contractor come out and draw up plans, that we then reworked until we felt it was just right. Sometime around the end of July we began having little talks about if we were doing the right thing at the right time. But we kept plowing forward with "our" plan. One Wednesday in mid August Ricky came in from work and that evening we set down to discuss the finalized plans (because we had someone coming the very next day to start the building process). Half way through this discussion Ricky kind of just stopped talking and looked at me. We both just knew. I said, "Do you want me to call him and tell him not to come tomorrow?" and he said, "Yes."

And with that, the thoughts of building onto the house ended. We both wanted to do it. We both wanted to be excited about it. But somehow everytime we tried to move forward with it, we just couldn't. And I am so glad it was that way with both of us. I remember asking Ricky that day, "Why in the world would God not want us to build on to our house?" Neither one of us had the answer to that question --- atleast not that day!

The very next day (please notice that) THE VERY NEXT DAY...
I was driving back to work from having lunch at my Mom and Dad's house when I had a random thought go through my mind about a house we had noticed MONTHS and MONTHS before. On a "whim" (I call it a whim but only because it seemed that way at the time) I drove by the house. Sure enough, the sign was still in the yard. Ricky and I had been at some friend's house who lived in the same neighborhood several months ago, when as we were passing this house, Ricky slowed the vehicle and commented on how he liked the house and about how it reminded him of his late grandparents house. Literally we had a 10 second conversation about the house and that was it - at that time.

Fast forward through spring and summer and here I was months later setting in my van at the same spot. Remembering this house "on a whim" and driving by it was the beginning of the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. I took a quick photo of the house as I slowed down out front and text it to Ricky and said something like, "Remember this house? Maybe we should look into it." Within seconds he was responding that he wished I would call about it and just see what I could find out. Less than 3 hours later we were all 4 inside the house looking at it. After we finished looking through it, we just knew. There was very little discussion between the two of us. It was an open door - and less than 24 hours later we made an offer and had it accepted.

And that - is how we came to buy our new house.

Behind the trees, the fallen down shutters, and the vines growing up the side of this forgotten house is where we intend to make our next home - our own little piece of Heaven on Earth. 

All the details are still being worked out and we have a long way to go before this place will officially be Home to us, but we are looking forward to the challenge of bringing another house back to life with some elbow grease and a little sweat equity :)

And while I will miss my little white dream home, I will forever carry with me many wonderful memories we made there! And I am so happy in knowing we are leaving it much, much better than when we found it!

I did not ever really show our full flip of 885 here on this blog, but I am hoping to be more regular about that this time around. And maybe I will even throw in some before and after photos of 885 before we really get going on the new house (who has yet to be "dubbed" with a sir name/number.)

Stay tuned I can't wait to share all the 'glamourous' art of another house to home reno!