On Moving to the Country

I grew up outside city limits, in a neighborhood of sorts, but still surrounded by field and forest.  On warm nights, we heard frogs singing at a nearby pond and pretty much any night, coyotes  laughing crazily as they ran down our street.

All of our married years, we have lived in town.  There's just something about traffic noise, sirens, and people that made me yearn for quiet, stillness, frogs singing...and possibly even coyotes laughing.

After a whole lot of praying and waiting and more waiting (patience is not one of my virtues), we finally got our chance.  It sounded perfect on paper - 2 story house, hardwood floors, wood burning fireplace, a few acres, pond and a detached garage on a hill about 10 minutes or less from where we lived.  Sometimes, things on paper look a little different in person.

Driving out to see it deterred 3 of the 4 of us, with kind of a messy/scary/junky place right before our turn and a steep-feeling (at the time) loose gravel driveway straight up a good-sized hill.  Both kids were asking to just go back home and my husband said more as a statement than a question, "Oh Cara, what have you done" (I've heard this before, a time or two).  I was completely undeterred, because only good things are at the end of  long winding gravel driveways...right?

As soon as we took the right fork at the silver propane tank (not kidding), and went under a ginormous oak tree, we saw it.  Sticking out like a sore thumb, in all of it's orange-y brown and green-roofed glory...and I knew it was THE ONE.  I think everyone else in the car shuddered (as I internally uttered a "thank you God"), as well as our realtor, John, who we were following.  Dear, long suffering, helpful, kind John.  After helping us find our first house, he's cheerfully shown us many houses and pieces of land over the past many years.

So symmetrical, except for that front door...

We toured the immaculate, strangely laid out, and incredibly dated house.  It was all wrong!  The enormous master suite, complete with huge jacuzzi tub, tanning bed, weights room and NO closets (seriously, clothes were kept in dormer storage), took up the ENTIRE upstairs. 

This bedroom was 24' long and 14' wide.

This is a huge weights set.  

We made this into a bedroom and two twin beds fit comfortably.

The best view was from the jacuzzi, though you could only see it if you stood up. 

See the view?

The two kid bedrooms were downstairs and shared a very large master type bathroom with the rest of the house. The kitchen cabinet's stain almost matched the orange-brown of the exterior paint, and the real wood floors ran diagonally until meeting with very blue, mauve and terracotta toned ceramic tiles. 

 Nothing wrong with blue...unless you're a warm tones kind of girl.

Diagonal floors, and that fireplace (shaking my head).

Lots of odd planning, but absolutely filled with potential.  And who doesn't love potential?  We talked it over for a couple of days and decided it was perfectly imperfect.  And with a new coat or two or three of paint, it could really be adorable.  Floor plans and finishes can be changed, but land not always.  The land was far better than what we'd hoped for.

We left our sweet neighbors in March, and moved into our perfectly imperfect new to us house.  The kids shared the upstairs until demolition began and then shared a room downstairs.  Bickering, giggling, irritating each other and keeping each other up at night took over the next three months.  We wondered what on earth we'd been thinking and if it was all a big mistake.  Since the home building market was booming in our area, no one wanted to take on small jobs such as an upstairs remodel.  We found one craftsman with time to start demo and framing and then it was a crash course in construction for the Davis duo.  And while we love, love, love our home, and have done a lot in almost a year, there is still so much to do!  But that is a story for next time.