Back in September we were happily living here.
We had been in our charming house with the amazing backyard for almost six years. We loved it and knew we could stay there for a long long time. However, we were needing to make a little decision about it. You see, we had rented out our basement apartment for the entire time we had lived there, and our current renters were building a condo of their own and would be moving out at the end of the year. Both Mark and I were feeling like we wanted more space than the upstairs of this house provided, so we were considering taking over the whole house and ending the tenant income we had come to enjoy. But then we started thinking how nice renter income is and how much we enjoyed having someone else pay our mortgage. It was a bit of a dilemma. We wanted more space and renter income at the same time. So Mark started exploring real estate options. We thought of buying something else to rent so we could use all of our house for our living space. We looked at options in the neighborhood and thought about commercial real estate. Then one day, September 23, 2014 to be exact, as Mark has often done in the past, he sent me a bunch of links to different properties. This time he included some listings with horse property. That got the wheels turning and the dreams coming and I just knew I was ready for some real animal property. You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.
The last property link he sent me blew my mind and seemed so amazing and so much money that I dismissed it as impossible to be right for us and I went about my day. That night when Mark got home from work, he casually brought up the last and amazing property he sent. We sat in the study and looked at it on my computer. As we talked and talked about that property and the finances late into the night, my doubts about it melted away and the reality of making it work started to sink in. It was perfect in every way. I was falling in love with that place just looking at the pictures and talking about it's every detail. Neither Mark nor I could sleep that night as our heads were full of the idea that it could actually be a possibility. We knew we had to see that property and we had to see it as soon as possible.
The next morning Mark asked his realtor friend Johnny to set up a time for us to see it. The show time was set for 5:00 p.m. that day. After what seemed like a very long day we met at the house to check it out. It was even better and bigger and more perfect for us than we had thought. Not only was it perfect, but the owner was there to tell us that they were very motivated to sell and to give him any offer even a low one. Once again we stayed up late into the night, maybe even all night, thinking and praying and talking and making sure this was what we should do. The next morning Johnny submitted our offer, which was much less than asking price. They didn't accept, but they didn't refuse either. We went up a little bit and Johnny did some talking and the offer was accepted the next day, Friday September 26th. Within three days we went from not even looking to move, to buying our dream house.
The pace of life got kicked up a notch at this point. We needed to sell our house for all the finances to work out smoothly so our realtor scheduled a photographer for the next day. The next day! I had to stage my home and get it ready for photographs within a few hours. I've never cleaned so fast and smashed so much stuff into our closets before. As soon as the pictures were taken, I had to pull everything back out of the closets and start removing all of our stuff so anyone who wanted to see the house would not be crushed by items crashing down on top of them when they decided to open a closet door. Luckily Mark's parents have plenty of space so we could temporarily store half our stuff there. I'm also lucky that Mark was able and willing to take care of ALL the paperwork and financial side of buying and selling. I took charge of the house and packing and the kids he did everything else. We were also blessed through all of this that our parents were able and willing to loan us money until we sold our house. It lessened the stress more than anything else could have.
My days were full of packing, organizing, cleaning, and the regular daily routine for the kids. Mark's days were filled with work and trips to the bank and signing document after document and phone calls and then he would come home and we would talk and dream about our new house. After two open houses and lots of showings, our house went under contract within three weeks of it being listed. It worked out so well. The buyers wanted to keep the renters and were happy about the property. Here's some pictures of it then.
Buying the new house went smoothly as well thanks to both our parents. We closed on the new house on Halloween, October 31, 2014. Here are some pictures from the listing of the new house. A lot has changed since we've moved in, but I want to remember what it looked like when we saw the place.
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