Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.
Sam Levenson
I am back! What a whirlwind of crazy this summer turned into. Did I like it? Absolutely not. Would I do it again? No. Do I think this experience stretched me and made me grow as a person, wife, and mother? A thousand times yes.
A Little Backstory In Case You’re New
Our family lived in a small-ish town about 20 minutes East of where I grew up in Western Washington. I say “small-ish” because I thought it was huge compared to where I had spent my childhood, however my husband is from just outside of Phoenix and he has assured me it was not a big town. Our house was small, but cute. The road we lived on was ridiculously busy, and while we liked most of our neighbors (there is always that one person….) I greatly missed my tiny hometown, the slowness of it, and the community that I grew up surrounded by. In his attempt to make me the happiest version of myself possible, my husband started looking casually for a home and property in my hometown. While he was casually looking, the housing market EXPLODED! I knew our little starter home would never, and I mean NEVER be worth what it was worth at that time ever again, so we started looking more seriously. A place we had been watching was put on the market and I thought to myself “The man has lost his mind. There is no way that place is worth that much… it needs so much work.” So we all lost our minds together and my husband and I bought it.
Our home sold very quickly once the owner of our new home accepted our offer and in a rush we were packed and moved out. I say a rush because the buyer of our home was paying cash and wanted to close quickly and the seller of our new home was moving cross country and wanted to close quickly. The plan was to stay with my mom for about 2 weeks while we redid the flooring in the new house and painted a mildew blocker on everything. What was supposed to be 2 weeks turned into almost 4 months of headaches.
Closing was a disaster that nobody could have seen coming. We closed on our home we were selling quickly and on schedule. That went fairly smooth and I thought we were going to have smooth sailing. I was SO wrong. The home we bought is an old mobile home. When I say old I mean 1974. The listing had it listed as a 1984 which is still old, but financeable. 1974 was not financeable, which we learned the day before we were supposed to sign. It was devastating. We had sold our home and our financing fell through making us homeless. Thankfully, we had the realtor from heaven, who went right to work at the first sign that things were going to fall apart and found someone willing to finance it for us. Of course the interest rate was higher, which in turn made out mortgage higher each month, but it was still doable and we had financing. Starting over with a new lender also meant another 30 days to close and the seller wasn’t happy. Our amazing realtor smoothed things over and we were back on track. It was a LONG 30 days.
We finally closed and I was beyond excited to get in here and get my hands dirty so we could move in. What greeted me was much more of a disaster than we had thought. We bought this house “as is” and we new it would need to be completely remodeled so we opted out of the inspection. We started pulling up carpet and found a completely rotted out floor. Not just a little water damage, completely rotten. The first contractor we worked with out came out and gave me a quote that was way out of our budget and all I could think was “We are going to still be homeless, but now we have a mortgage.”
Fast forward a couple more weeks, and we found ourselves applying for a second mortgage to remodel the house, and looking for another contactor that was in our budget. It wasn’t livable and there was NO way I was moving my babies into it. The rodent and pest damage was severe. The mice had torn all of the insulation out and made little homes in it, and there was a yellow jacket nest that was easily the biggest I had ever seen in the master bedroom wall. There was a lot of damage to electrical and the plumbing as well.
The Work Begins
When I tell you that I never want to step foot in a Home Depot store again, I mean it with every fiber of my being. Oh my goodness! I feel like I was there weekly and I authorized sales over the phone for our contractor every couple days. I am on a first name basis with the clerks at the Pro Desk and I know the phone number by heart. We gutted the house all the way down to the studs and started over. It wasn’t at all how I wanted to do the work. We had originally planned on doing the floors and then going room by room as we had the cash until the whole house was done, but obviously that didn’t happen. What did happen was stressful, exposed some flaws in myself and my family, but ended up coming full circle and we are finally home. Home. Such a powerful word!
We have been living in our new home for about a month now. Unpacking has been going extremely slow, but I have learned to embrace it. We are downsizing our square footage and storage space, so there have been many dump runs and trips to Goodwill. I have been slowly letting go of our baby things as Hazel outgrows them and that is such a bittersweet feeling.
What’s Next?
The inside of the house is not completely finished, but it is so close. There are just a few things that we need to do still (like install door knobs), but they don’t affect our ability to live here and create family memories, so they can wait a little bit.
The property surrounding our new home is a disaster too! The seller left a lot, and I mean a LOT of things that need to be cleaned up. One thing I did notice however, is that the landscaping that is here under all of the overgrowth and the blackberries at some point was a large investment, and the best part? Almost every tree and shrub on the property produces some type of fruit. We have cherry, apple, pear, plum, and peach trees, blueberry bushes, a fig tree, and huckleberries! there is also a HUGE plot next to the house that at one time was a garden. There is a lot of trash and overgrowth in it now, but underneath all of that is going to be an amazing garden that will feed my family and probably several of our neighbors next spring and I can’t wait to get it brought back to life. David did help me clean out one little makeshift raised bed that the previous owners had left behind and we planted our first crop a couple weeks ago- garlic!
This journey has been one for the books, and honestly it’s just begun, but it feels good to be home and be back to doing what I love- cooking wholesome meals, raising my babies, falling in love with my husband more each day, and providing some inspiration to all of you in the kitchen, in your garden, and in your homes. I don’t ever want to move again… but the lessons that were learned here are priceless. Absolutely priceless.
~Tara