The Cottage

Once the deal was struck, the money borrowed, the house ours there was the ordeal of the WAIT.  Due to the building of the new home we would not be able to move into Blessings House for a year.  Rather than wait we immediately put ours up for sale and began the hunt for a rental.  Honey Pie had in mind an apt or efficiency long term hotel suite.  I had in mind new furniture for Blessings.  So I hunted around and found, drum roll please, The Cottage.


I decided to call it The Cottage because The Scary House, as my children had started referring to it, just did not have a grateful ring.  They called it that because of the narrow dark stairway and hallway that was the things horror stories are made of.  Lets just say that I am a picture freak, I take photos of EVERYTHING.  I took no images of that house.  Nary a one.  It was not a conscious decision, but looking back it speaks volumes to me of my emotional state.


The Cottage was a hundred year old house with original.... everything.  Almost.  It was in an older section of town (read scary) had tons of issues BUT was only $600 per month. Yes indeedy $600.  That plus the fact that it sat next door to my children's great uncle & aunt brought it up considerably in the desirability department.  Honey Pie was unsure, but willing.  It had only a single window unit for a/c.  I will leave it up to your imagination how thrilled he was about that.  I purchased two small ones from Sams club for the bedrooms and reminded myself that millions of people live without air.  It was a small price to pay for saving up some curtain money.  Those curtains were certainly worked out with sweat equity of a new sort, as the kitchen was like an oven.


I scraped off 8 layers of wall paper in the dining room only to discover, to my everlasting horror, that there was NOTHING underneath.  Nothing but the frame boards.  AGGG!  So I applied 300, yes mam, three hundred pounds of drywall compound to those boards.  With my hands.  It ended up looking like the inside of the Olive Garden, but with the artistic addition of my fingerprints.


I painted the entire kitchen white.  Countertops, fridge, cabinets the works.  I quickly ran out of energy and extra dollars and since we were only going to be there for 12 months I killed the 'do more' bug with one swift swat of my plastered/paint covered hand. I will draw the curtain of gratitude over the rest of the house.  Suffice to say that the low rent made it far more appealing to me than it did to any of my friends who came over.  All three of my kiddos shared a room and that was a fun thing for them.  Many a night they lay awake listening to story tapes, giggling and whispering together.  And they adored Aunt P & Uncle W next door.  They spent hours over there, playing with the dog, playing in the yard, being petted and pampered.


There were unexpected things that arose during our stay in The Cottage.  Looking back I am not sure that living there was the best thing for us. I had some seizures, James had separation anxiety from the move/relocation, Reagan developed IBS and Lincoln suffered terrible breathing troubles. I wonder if there were mold issues in the house which brought on some of the emotional/physical trauma we endured.  But I cannot say for sure.  Knowing what I know now, I would not do it again.  Just in case.


One of the many lessons I learned from the 12 months we lived there was that your surroundings DO affect your emotions.  The effect can be positive or negative.  The darkness, the narrow stairway, the dungeon basement laundry and the neighborhood were energy suckers.  I learned, and learned quick, that saving money is NOT always worth the sacrifice.  Sometimes spending more is the wiser choice.  That whole location location location thing is a truism.

Another lesson is that hope is a powerful thing.  The bright dream of Blessings House was keep me looking forward, to keep me on track, to keep my focus on the future.  No matter where you find yourself, you CAN look forward to the future.  I may be HERE, but I am not HERE to stay!

The Hunt

So we were on the hunt.  Honey Pie fell in love with a white colonial.  It was a repo, and in our price range.  I wasn't sold on it but since it is one of the FEW things he has EVER said he wanted, I was willing.  We put in the bid.  Our home did not sell.  Sigh.  He was disappointed.

Honey Pies mom had told me the story many times of a home they purchased when Honey Pie was an infant.  They had put a way below list price offer on a custom home.  The owners told them that they had 3 offers for several thousand dollars MORE, but they wanted them, the young Coltharp family, to live in their home.  It was a home they never could have afforded, but by a miracle it was handed to them.  I loved that story.  I still do.

One Sunday we visited yet another new on the market repo. It was a mess.  But, cue the music, across the street was the castle of my dreams.  Mind you, it was waaaaayyyyy beyond our price range.  Double our price range.  It made me drool just looking at it.  I pointed it out to Honey Pie who promptly said "Houses like that do not even make it onto the market, the seller will KNOW someone who wants it."  Remember this was at the high point of the selling market.

But I just could not get that house off my mind.  I started driving past it on my way to church.  The more I saw it, the more it called to me.  One day, on a whim, I stopped and knocked on the door.  I proceeded to tell the person at the door how much I looooovvvvved their house, and did by chance she know the genius who had designed it, as I would very much be interested in seeing their other work, in case they made this fine castle in a miniature cottage form.  Why yes indeed, she DID know who had designed it, her father.  She took my phone number and promised to give it to him.  A day or two later he called.  I prattled on about how his house was the most beautiful house in Aurora, and believe me, I'd seen them all, and did he happen to have designed any others around here?  He was gracious and told me about his design firm.  We parted on friendly terms.  I had it in mind to look him up when I sold a book (my version of the 'when my ship comes in' daydream) and have him build me one!

The house kept calling to me, and so I began to drive around it every time we went to church.  That is approximately 5 or 6 times a week.  The kiddos and I would drive by, slow down and pray for the family who lived there.  Several times I knocked on the door and asked if they had any prayer requests.  I called every 6 months or so to check on prayer requests.  Sure enough, prayers were answered!  I would invite them to special services, and we have plenty of those!  One day I got a call, it was the home owner.  He was going to build a new home in a neighboring community, and would I like to come see the inside of his house.  Would I?  Wahoo!  This would give me decorating ideas for my someday house, which we had not found yet.

I dragged Honey Pie and his mom & dad along for The Visit.  I assured them that we were meant to meet these folks, and that I had been inviting them for over a YEAR to our church.  They just HAD to come meet them and see this house.  To humor me, they went along.

We got the grand tour.  It was beautiful.  A thousand times more house than we had ever looked at before.  We sat in their living room and talked, and they told us they knew I loved the house (!!) and would like to offer us first chance at it before they put it up for sale.  They were planning to start building their new home and would be living in this one for a year longer.  They had the appraisal papers and house plans and specs for us to take home.  As we walked down the sidewalk, all three of my sweet ones pounced on me, lovingly, and said "Now Rachel, you know that people like us cannot afford homes like this, please do not get your heart set on this house".  I assured them that I did not have my heart SET on it, that I did love it, and was overwhelmed by the interior space, but that my vision was for the people, not the home.

Honey Pie and I had a long talk, he was reluctant to even place an offer.  He knew that our limit was way below the value of the home.  He worried that it might offend them.  I countered that our best offer was that, our best.  What did we have to lose?  He begrudgingly typed it up, assuring them we meant no disrespect to the value of the home, and the personal investment the designer had in it.  He explained our financial situation, the choice to be a one income family, the home we needed to sell etc.  He added in the dollar amount, wincing.  It was hard on his pride, but he did it for me.

He was too embarrassed to even deliver the offer to the man in person.  So he left it inside the storm door.  Four eternally long days later he called me, choked up.  Honey Pie was crying.  He said the home owner had called and told him "I know I could sell my house for a profit, but I want you to have it."  It was almost word for word the same thing spoken to his father 36 years earlier!  The house was ours!

The Beginning

It all began here, in 2000 when we moved into a 1948 Cape Cod.  Ok, this is NOT my actual house, as we have no photos of my actual house due to the monster trees in the front yard that obscure its existence from the camera eye.  This is my friends house (Sheri Simpson) and it is just like mine, except I did not have the lovely big porch, or beautiful door.

It had original hard wood floors.  Original wood trim, stained glass windows in the bathrooms and beautiful built in's.  It was small, about 900 sq. feet, had practically no closets and the basement was like a dungeon.  But we loved it.  Love it still.  It had a huge back yard, grapes grew on supports all around the back.  The detached garage was covered in ivy and had a beautifully landscaped shade garden linking the deck to the garage.  Ferns grew in a bed beside the back and we put in climbing rosebushes to grow up the deck supports.  It was perfect for us.  Small, affordable, old and homey.  We lived there for almost 6 years.

It had it's issues, all homes do.  Honey Pie could not stand up to his full 6'4" height in the basement, rendering it useless for him.  The kids bedrooms were upstairs, ours was on the first floor, causing many a sleep on the couch nights battle for us.  The closets were wee, forcing me to hang my clothes in the dark unfinished basement, not a fun thing.  Many a time I showed up somewhere with a black skirt and a navy shirt, due to the poor lighting which only a bat could have matched colors in.  I had to do my writing, sewing, ebaying on the kitchen table and remove it each day.  The computer and sewing machine were constantly being pulled off the table and set in a corner, covered with a cloth.  But we were happy.

Honey Pie ripped up the carpets to unveil the beautiful wood floors underneath.  He sanded, stained and sealed them. The kitchen had, sadly, lost its original cabinets and the 1970's plastic looking ones were in need of help.  For my anniversary gift one year, he painted them white.  I painted everything white, the fridge (it was yellow) the countertop (beige) the light surround (red) and the dishwasher (black).  Yes, you CAN paint tile and appliances.  Use a primer made for it and it will take regular ol enamel paint.  You can paint your BATHTUB with this stuff!  It has to set for 2 weeks, then it is more durable than concrete!

To that home we welcomed baby Lincoln in 2003.  This posed a problem with eating time, our dining room was so small we couldn't fit his highchair in, so we positioned him in the doorway to the kitchen!  The next year we began the search for something bigger.  It was a bit cramped with 5 of us.  We prayed about the decision, talked to our parents for advice, and felt good about it.  We were hoping for a repo, something we could snag at a bargain price and put some work into.  And the hunt began.  We found 3, put in offers but lost them because our own house did not sell in time.  It was so discouraging, houses in my neighborhood that had only one bathroom, no yard, icky floors etc were selling at $20,000 OVER what we were asking.  House after house fell through.  The market was at its highest, homes were selling in ONE DAY... but ours sat unnoticed.  Our real estate agent was baffled.  We were too.  But hope springs eternal, and once you start looking at bigger homes it is hard to stop!  So we kept looking.  There was one house I completely fell in love with.  New construction, blue, a monster of a house that had been repoed, someone bit off more than they could chew and so it was on the market at a fraction of the price.  I just KNEW this was it.  It was about $100,000 above our price range (market value) but they were taking bids starting at just under our price limit.  It was perfect, even had a custom mail box built like a train. The Thomas the Tank loving boys were in heaven!  The bids went in, our real estate agent even threw in her commission to raise the bid.  Which we lost, barely.

Yes, I believe the steps of a righteous person are ordered of the Lord.  Yes I believe that all things work together for the good of folks who love God and are called to fulfill HIS purpose.  But I also know that disappointments hurt.  And that one did.  I really wanted that house, I really thought it was going to be THE house.  It was in a good school district, near my friend Carmen, in a good neighborhood.  It was big enough to house my dreams of hosting women's Bible Study in my home, the kids being able to have their friends over, Honey Pie being able to have a home office, me having room to house my artistic/business endeavors.  It was perfect... or so I though at the time.  Looking back, with the knowledge of what I know now, it was a perfect house no doubt, but not for us.  It was a 30 min drive from the church, the home God had planned for us is 3 min from the church, 4 min from my in-laws, 2.5 min from my sister-in-law.  We are able to do shared school runs, easy, fast drop in's, and countless emergency room visits are sped along by their quick access.  God knew, he cared.  Enough to say no.

Thank you Father, for knowing more than I do, for loving me enough to say "no", to say "wait"