The Moment We Bought a Fixer Upper
A couple months before we got married. We had yet to find out how tiny this house truly was.
Have you ever lived in a tiny house?
Those cute, little houses on wheels, that you think “Oh, yeah, I could do that.” Well our 1st house didn’t have wheels and wasn’t that cute, but it sure was tiny. About 600 sq. feet tiny.
Before my husband, Grant, and I got married, we each lived in our tiny house separately. He lived in it for a couple months. Then he moved out, and I moved in. The wedding happened, and we moved in together. When I lived there by myself, it was quant and just the perfect size, but needless to say, after a couple months of marriage, with two humans and two animals, that house was cramped.
Our Tiny Home
One Bedroom, One bath
So after seven months of marriage, we (well I) decided it was time to start house hunting.
We wanted something on the cheaper end because we didn’t want to spend our whole life paying off a mortgage. That isn’t easy when you live in our small town where houses are not cheap. I made it my second job to find us a house. Daily, I scrolled through realitor.com in hopes to find our dream home. There would be times I’d say to Grant, “What about this one?” and he wouldn’t even turn his head. Then, one day in July 2017, I scrolled down to see the home of our dreams. A 4 bed, 2 bath for around $50,000. It had so many aspects going for it. It had the space for us to grow. The price was fabulous. The neighborhood was safe.
The only problem was it needed work.
But that didn’t stop us. Grant and I decided to just look at it. The timing in human standards couldn’t be worse. The very next day, we were set to move to Garden City to live in a hotel for a month. That, in itself, is a whole other story. So despite the terrible timing, we did a walk through.
When walking through the front door, most people would have thought “Yikes!” and ran right back out. However, we saw this house differently. Not that “yikes!” wasn’t my first thought, but after that was another thought, a dream. A vision. I imagined these walls hosting family Christmas. I pictured myself in the kitchen cooking dinner for my family. I saw a 1913 farmhouse restored to its glory, because after all that’s what it was, a farmhouse moved in to town. It needed A LOT of work, but we were young. We could handle it, right?
After our walkthrough, we stood in the yard and prayed over this house. I knew in my spirit that this house was ours but now we had to go through the process. We put in an offer the day we left, August 1, 2017. There were counter offers and nervous phone calls. Deep prayers and big conversations, but after 2 weeks, we had news the house was ours for $48,000! Talk about a God Send! By the end of August 2017, we had moved back to town from Garden City, and we were stepping into a new adventure:
Home Ownership!
It’s ours!
Grant and I (along with Midas and Mittens) moved into our new home in Sept 2017. Now three years later, I’m still not sure we completely know what we’ve gotten ourselves in to. We only have one room out of the nine done. We still sleep in a makeshift bedroom, and our shower is located under the stairs. But even though our work has not matched our original timeline, this house has been good to us.
So far this home has given a friend a place to stay. This home has welcomed the first Kansas Moms in the Making group. This home is where we first embraced baby Mango (our cat). This home is where we began McPherson Turf Care. This home is where we’ve gotten sad, discouraged, and frustrated. This home is where we found out we were pregnant. This home is where we cried after my ectopic pregnancy. This home is where we’ve disagreed and worked it out. This home is where we kiss each other good bye each morning and goodnight at bed time.
This home where is were we are safe and loved.