25th Anniversary: A House Story

John and I began to long for a house of our own about 1994.  It seemed like the right time to look for a house.  We'd been together for two years, had just gotten married and we were ready to establish ourselves as a proper family.   We spent the next year looking first at houses, discounting one after the other, then at home plans and costs and then at mobile homes.  

We were pretty sure we'd go the route of a mobile home.  Financially it made the most sense.  Aesthetically, mobile homes were on the uprise and while they might look like cookie cutter homes on the outside they were often well designed with modern finishes and arrangements inside.   As well, most of the homes on the lots were staged, long before anyone was staging traditional built homes to sell, and that staging could really help you see how well a home could adapt to your own needs and family and furnishings.  

We actually found the floor plan we wanted in a home that sat on Horton Homes lot in Warner Robins at least a year and a half before we actively began looking for a home.  We walked into the big kitchen with double windows on the two outer walls and both said "Man!  This is it!"   We didn't buy that house.  We weren't quite ready to marry.   And there were things about the house we didn't like.  Mostly, it was the cheap finishes that put us off.  We were not overly picky.  We didn't have a big budget.   But we didn't want a house that looked cheap and likely wouldn't last a year without needing repairs.  We didn't look anymore after finding that home, however.  Instead, we began looking for land.  

We looked for the next year and a half.  There were beautiful lots we looked at and wanted but the county where we worked and lived was odd.  Time was never of the essence to anyone.  Take a car to the mechanic and you might, might, get it back a month or two later.  Ask a roofer to run by and check on the hole in your roof and no one would ever show up.  Ditto for electricians and contractors to make repairs.  Real estate agents were pretty much the same.  

Ask to see a lot of land, tell them you had cash in hand ready to buy right there if you could just walk over the lot and they'd still not show up.  Lamest excuse ever was from an agent who said, "Oh I had to walk the dog."  Book an appointment to see a house and no one would show or answer your call afterwards.  

In between all this, John and I got married.  It further drove our incentive to find a place we could call ours.

John and I began to despair.  We were leading busy lives and didn't have time to go on searches far and wide.  This was the days prior to the internet and information at your fingertips.  We'd pick up the free real estate magazines but finding a suitable piece of land or a house within easy riding distance of our jobs was harder than you'd think it might have been.  We tried to focus on land only, but we were getting desperate.  The rental where we lived was literally falling down around our heads and we wanted to move our family.  We were ready to look at anything within our price range.  It seemed that door was permanently shut, however.

It was mighty discouraging.  We were getting ready to leave for work one morning and had been discussing another necessary repair the homeowner was unwilling to make on the house where we lived.   We were frustrated and upset with the situation and with the impatience of each other.  Just as I started to walk out of the door, I stopped in front of John and looked at him hard.  "We will find a house and land and it will be our own.   We'll be debt free!"   John looked at me skeptically but then he nodded.  "Okay, then.   We'll keep looking."

Eleven months later, on Easter Sunday while having a family dinner with Granny, we asked Mama if she would sell us two acres of her portion of this property.  I pointed out the piece of land we had in mind.   Mama had always been adamant that I'd never get a piece of this property, it would be for the boys and only for the boys but for some reason that Sunday she looked at me long and hard and told me "I'll sell you ten acres."   She named a price that was stupid low and shocked me to tears.  I said "But Mama!  It's worth more than that!"  "I know it, but it's what I want for it."  She went on Monday and began the process of getting the deed.  

Now this county is, in some ways about like the county we lived in at the time.  Getting a small-town lawyer to move fast is a lot less fun than watching slugs' race.  In fact, the slugs have it all over the small-town lawyers when it comes to moving fast.  And just so you know, nothing has changed since then.  Sam is still waiting on a deed the lawyer has been processing for the past two years.

John and I began to look for a mobile home all over again.  Every free weekend we had we took off and rode miles and miles to look at various mobile home lots.  We agreed to stick within a 50-mile radius of the property which was about the limit most were willing to transport a home.  We found a model in Perry at a lot that had the same basic footprint as that first home we'd found and loved.   The finishes in this one was a lot nicer.  It was a four-bedroom model and we liked it a lot.  This wasn't meant to be, however.  They wouldn't quote a price until they'd checked our credit and then we were 'approved' to buy the home for a price that suited our credit score, which was high.  We could have bought any number of stick built, well-maintained homes in nicer neighborhoods for the price we were finally quoted.   We walked away from the place without buying.

I received the land deed at the end of August.  We had land. I didn't get the portion of land I'd asked for, but I received 9 acres in another spot.  We weren't looking any gift horse in the mouth!  The land was paid for in full the day we'd made the deal with Mama.

We continued to search.  Finally in September of 1996, we found the house we wanted at a price we felt was reasonable.   It had the same floor plan as our previous two choices.  It was a three-bedroom model which we felt suited the family we were imminently going to become.  Jd had already left home.  Amie was 16 and would be leaving home within 5 years.  The price was right.  We signed on the dotted line.

No home buying experience ever goes exactly as planned.  We negotiated the price of a porch on our home.  I lobbied hard for front and back porches but had to concede the battle and settle for the front porch.   We planned to finance for 15 years.  I'm afraid that we read the papers poorly though and found we'd signed a 30-year mortgage instead.  

The porch was a miscalculation on the part of the girl writing up the paperwork.  We were told we'd get a deck instead.  We offered to cancel the deal then and there with no hard feelings and somehow, we managed to get a porch, albeit a smaller one.  

We got the very best interest rate going at that time which incredibly was just under 10%.  In light of the 1 and 2% mortgages we saw a few short years ago, it seems like extortion, but it was a really good rate for 1996.   

John and I wondered about that little word of prophecy I'd spoken.  Obviously, our house wasn't going to be free right off as we'd taken the word to mean.   We had however, put up quite a fight over our land which we refused to use as collateral and kept it free of any legal entanglements.

September.  October.  November.  We hired my brother to clear the property and level a place for our house to sit.  We'd opted to have the house sitting at the uppermost height of the hill but at his urging we moved it down two terraces.  He explained that the wind often hit rather hard here and he was afraid of the damage we might sustain if we were at the top of the hill.    

The house was moved onto the spot November 11.  It sat for two weeks before anyone came along to put it together and block it up.  Immediately we began the moving process.  I would load my Blazer every night after supper and then the next day after work I'd drive here to unload things into the house and would go home to pack up another load.  On weekends, if John wasn't working, we'd pack, load and unload and set up the house.  It felt like an endless process. 

In the meantime, the porch was being built.  The electric pole went in.  Sewage lines and sewer tank were put in and connected.   We had been digging for water for a week with no view of having any when we officially moved in, on December 17, 1996, to spend our first night in the house.   

The next day, the kids stayed here while John and I drove to Pensacola to pick Jd up from the naval base there.  He had two weeks leave.  We drove home all night long.  We hadn't had so much as a nap in 24 hours.  We arrived home on Saturday morning.   On Sunday we were hosting a family party.  The well came in while we were driving to Pensacola.   My brother came by to deal with flushing water lines and checked on the kids. We drove back home in the pitch dark, driving all night long from Pensacola to our new home. 

I look back and am amazed that we even thought it would be possible to have a family Christmas party that first Sunday in our home.  Yet when we returned, we put up the tree and decorated the house.  We made food.  We went to bed that night and died and then got up the next morning and hosted our first family gathering here. 

And one day our prophecy came true.  We were debt free.  We own our home outright.  It's a story, too but not a story to be told today.  Today the story is about the house itself.

I've always liked this house.  I love the big windows that let in so much light and though, after 25 years, there are things that need to be repaired/replaced, it's held up pretty well.  We're gently shabby in areas but by no means falling apart at the seams.  

We've made improvements slowly.  A new AC and roof (within the same three-month period, OY!).  New flooring.

First a back deck and then we covered it to make it a porch.

And a couple of years ago we redesigned the front porch steps and put new skirting about the house, choosing something more permanent than the plastic skirting we'd had for years.

The tiny trees that I once dreamed of offering shade grew up and now offer us some shady relief in summer.   

The bare dirt has become a vast lawn.  The winds have come and flipped the pump house over multiples of times and once warped the entire back door frame so badly we had to replace it but the house itself has stayed strong.  

 

Storms have raged about us and sometimes within us, but we were safe here.   Our lives changed.  I went to work and then I didn't.  I became a stay-at-home mom and later a writer in this home.  John went to medic school and became a paramedic.   He's retired.  Supposedly so am I.

I've found solace and peace here on this land.  I feel I am a part of something that is timeless.  It has gone on forever and will go on long after me.  There's a healing spirit here.  The house was just a house.  It wasn't really part of it, but I've grown to really love this home over the past five years. 

We've lived a lot within these walls.  We've lost family members.  All the children have moved out (and some back in several times and then out again).  We've watched dreams burn bright and then die.  We've discovered wonderful things and experienced horrible ones.  We've welcomed grandchildren.  We've loved and fought and built a good marriage and a strong family.  We've made this house our home.      

 We were sitting in the kitchen sitting area the other day looking out of the windows and talking after a big 'discussion'...those happen, lol.  But then John started doing what he so often does.  He recanted the things that had come to be while we've lived here and then he said, "Look at what the Lord has done..." and I smiled.  

I started to reminisce, too and reminded him of the way we'd come to be here.  As I looked back down over the years, I gasped.  That's when I realized it's been 25 years this weekend that we've been here.  Then as now, we're about to host a family party.  Things change and yet they don't.

So let me say, "Happy Anniversary, House!"  You've sheltered us well.  Thank you.  Indeed, look at what the Lord has done.