Finally, We Did It

This is it. We have finally found the house of our dreams. And, as of last Friday, we officially became the owners. Now we just have to make it livable!!!

My husband, Josh, and I have spent many years arguing over what our dream home really was. For him, the vision was not necessarily the house itself but the location. He grew up in the country and has always wanted to get back out of town. For me, dream home meant an old house in the country, one that had not been destroyed with paneling, carpet, and modern woodwork. So imagine how happy we were to find a place that satisfies both of our dreams.

About a year and a half ago, I was driving home from work when I saw a For Sale sign. I had some time, so I turned off the highway and went to investigate. The house that was for sale was not worth looking at, but I passed a property on my back to the highway that made me stop the car. I saw a run down one and a half story bungalow sitting on a small acreage. It was in pretty rough shape from the outside and things were very grown up around it. It was obvious that no one had lived there for awhile. I took Josh and our daughters back by it later that evening. Josh said that he would try to find out who owned it.

We found out the owner's name, but Josh was hesitant to talk to him at first because he had heard from others in town that he would not sell the place. This was confirmed the first time that Josh actually called and talked to the owner. So I spent a year driving past the place and dreaming. Then this fall, a friend of Josh's talked to the owner on our behalf to tell him that we were really interested and would do our best to make the acreage an asset to the neighborhood. He reluctantly agreed to show us the house. So we got our first look inside in October, and I fell even more in love with this house. Have you ever walked into a house and you could see your own furniture, knew exactly what colors the walls should be painted? I wanted this house.

Not that it didn't have problems. It was full to the brim with junk, left there by the elderly woman whose family originally built the house in 1920. Plaster was falling off the walls and there was no insulation, plumbing, or heating. But I still knew that I wanted that house.

We began the process of buying this dream (or nightmare, if you ask Josh) in November, and on January 23, 2009, we finally became the owners.