You guys, I don’t have words for how grateful I am that I’m not in control.
I’m going to call her out, but my sister-in-law has been (not so subtly) trying to get us to move back to Belton ever since we left 2 1/2 years ago. We were never opposed to the idea, but being in Greenville was the right thing for us at that particular time and we had plans to stick around at least 10 years (because money responsibility and mortgages, right?). In retrospect, it set us up for everything to work out to get us to this point (more on that later!). One day, I got a text about a house that some friends had moved to their land with this drive-by photo –
I was interested because of all of the space around it, but didn’t spend too much time dwelling on it because we were determined to stick with our plans (that’s laughable now… hasn’t taken me long to figure out planning my life is a waste of time). I let this slide until we were in town again and then for whatever reason, I casually said, “Hey, let’s drive by that house she sent me” and for whatever reason, Austin agreed. We drove by, and slammed on breaks to turn around and slow roll past the house again. Please keep in mind, my husband is not the type to get into houses the way I do. It had the basic look that we liked, the land around it, and what the earlier photo didn’t show was that all of the land surrounding it was INCREDIBLE. I can distinctly remember him saying, “Wait… THAT one?!” Yes, that one. A phone call or two was made that afternoon, and the ball started slowly rolling towards us moving yet again.
A little back story – at this point in our lives, we already owned two homes. Belton is a great small town, but isn’t exactly a hopping real estate market. When we moved to Greenville, we didn’t have any luck selling our first home and just kept it to rent out. Thankfully, we were blessed with good tenants during this time. Our house in Greenville was the change we needed when we moved- a break from projects, good area, in budget, and in a good neighborhood. When we moved, we really didn’t know much about the area that we were moving to. In hindsight, we now know that it is the fastest growing area in Greenville county! We had a wonderful couple of years in Greenville – wouldn’t change it for the world! Greenville is the bomb! But we had always talked about space to ourselves and eventually being closer to family again. We had thrown around the idea of building in the future, but building what we wanted was going to put us way out of what we were hoping to eventually spend. Imagine how we felt when we saw something that fit into that dream for the future so early!
Because I’m an adult, I’ve learned plenty of lessons about getting my hopes up. I feel like I spent at least 6 months not letting myself get too excited about the house, even though we were headed in that direction. After all, we’re a middle class working family and already owned two houses that we hadn’t had for all that long… if you have a mortgage, you understand. How were we EVER going to get out of those without losing a ton of money in the process? We simply couldn’t afford to unload those properties unless we sold them for exactly the right amount.
I can remember around that time being super overwhelmed, and praying one of the most basic prayers I know. “If this is Your will, let it be done.”
Turns out, God doesn’t actually need me to get anything done (imagine that). That area we didn’t know anything about when we moved to Greenville? Would you believe that the property values rose enough in two years for us to sell our house for enough to not only break even, but to make a little money off of it? Would you believe that our realtor who had become a friend that two years prior and who knew our story was still there to help us sell that house in less than a day? Would you believe that the people who bought the house so soon didn’t want to move in for over a month, which allowed us more time to work on the new house?
And would you believe, after years of no bites on our first house, that somebody came out of nowhere with an as-is, cash offer for our asking price and it sold in two weeks?
I’m ashamed to admit that I’m still surprised when things work out in ways that are obviously outside of my control.
… but wait, did I mention that we were blindly going into this project and hadn’t even seen the interior of the house until our house in Greenville was basically on the market? We went into this whole thing with a love of the land around it, and the knowledge that the house was a little bit bigger than our current one just based on seeing it a few times. When this all started, we heard that it had been previously vandalized and moved because of it. Most of what we had seen was a house up on cinder blocks, and we were blindly hoping that all of the necessary early renovations could be done within our budget.
This is the point in the story where I have to acknowledge the help that got us this far. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that SO many people were instrumental in getting us here! The beauty of a small town is that somebody always “knows a guy” who can do a job, do it well, and wants to do it because he either knows you or knows somebody you’re related to. My father-in-law was the best contractor, the family who moved the house in the first place is the most generous and did so many jobs for us ahead of time and did their best to make everything beautiful within our budget, and so many other folks helped us with different jobs along the way. (HVAC, faucets, floors, landscaping, you name it!)
When we did eventually get inside, I finally allowed myself to get excited. When I hear “vandalized” I imagine something a lot worse than what we were actually met with. In this case, it only meant copper wiring stolen, and crayon on some cabinets and walls. Here are a few of the very first before photos:
My wheels started turning as soon as I got in there. I’m no Joanna Gaines by any means, but I do know what I like and what our personal stamp looks like. Totally doable in this house! We were thrilled to see that it had all of the bedrooms we wanted, a good bonus room, a great open kitchen/living room area, a sunroom, and a separate dining space. We are thrilled for all of the potential that this house has! Since those days, lots of painting has been done, a porch has been added, some grass seed has been sown, and the personalization has started. This is the first place that truly feels right for us now and for the future, and I cannot wait to see what happens going forward! Thanks for sticking with me through this long-winded post 🙂
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