our first house

After living in an apartment in San Antonio for a couple of years, we decided we wanted to get out of the city and raise our kids in a small town. So one morning my husband took the day off of work and we drove out to Comfort, just to look around and get a feel for what might be for sale. We went into the local real estate office and told the agent (who happened to be a family friend) what we were looking for. Comfort is a small town (pop. 1600, tops) and there were not a lot of options in our price range. She thought for a minute and then said, "Get in the car, there's one I can show you." It happened to be a house we had just driven by and said wistfully to each other, "I know we could never afford that, but if we could just find something like it..." We started to get excited. It happened to be a rental house that the agent herself owned and was selling. She didn't present it as if she thought it was anything special but we were about to jump out of our skins. It was a craftsman-style bungalow built in 1919. We walked in and there was a beautiful rock wall made of Austin stone and a wood-burning stove on the hearth. The ceilings were wooden. The walls were made of beaded board. I remember grabbing my husband's arm and squeezing it hard to let him know I was freaking out without losing my poker face with the agent. By the time we got to the kitchen, my legs were shaking. We went to the backyard and almost ran into the huge Ash tree outside the door. It was probably six feet around and had the quintessential hole in it for squirrels to hide in. There were also huge pecan trees and a trumpet vine growing on the fence. It backed up to an open space and was on a hill. We went back in the house and she walked us through, apologizing for the messy renters. The bathroom floor was covered in dirty laundry but we didn't even notice. To us, it was a palace. The back room was the clincher. It had six windows and was enormous. The perfect kids' room. At the time Cole was almost one. As we walked out we drooled over the large front porch with two old porch swings. Could it be even be possible that we could afford this place? We had been living on one income, sharing a car and doing anything to cut costs so I could be home with Cole.

We told her, "We want it." She seemed surprised. I don't think anyone saw the potential in that house but us. I remember driving my mom and sister past it when it was still under contract and they said, "Ohhhh." I could tell they weren't enthused but I didn't blame them. It wasn't pretty on the outside at the time. We had never bought a house before and did not even consider things that normal people consider (other houses, potential problems with an 85 year-old house, etc.). We didn't really even have an agent to represent us since the agent was also the seller. We trusted her and she did not take advantage of us. We loved the house so much that we did not even want to get an inspection done. If it had problems, we did not want to know. But since we were getting a VA loan, it was required and they were very stringent in their standards. The inspector gave it a glowing report. We were shocked. No termites, and it had new wiring and plumbing. Who ever had owned it in the past had done a fantastic job maintaining it, even if their decorating abilities were lacking. It was filled with three different kinds of carpet, from orange shag to blue indoor/outdoor. They had also put fake wood paneling over some of the original beaded board.

As soon as we had the keys, the work began. My husband had to excavate through the layers of carpet, linoleum and tar-paper to get to the wood floors. He had to literally pick the linoleum off with a screwdriver one small piece at a time. He then sanded, stained and finished them with a glossy coat. They were gorgeous. He also built a custom china display for the hole in the wall that used to be a window before they had added on. I got to paint Cole's room and since it was already painted white, including the wood floor, it was a blank slate. I painted the floor grass green with a blue pond in the middle, complete with frogs and lily pads. The sky was blue and cloudy and there was a tree on the wall reaching up and over the room. The sun came up over Cole's bed and there was a helicopter with my Dad as a pilot in it. I also got to paint the kitchen floors black and white checkered. That was a son-of-a-bitch. I was on my knees for two days measuring, taping it off and painting. I had always wanted a kitchen with checkered floors.

There wasn't an inch of that house we did not touch with our own hands. We painted, cleaned, and tore out the 1970's "updates". It was like finding hidden treasures. We felt like the house was speaking to us, begging for help. The biggest discovery came when my husband was installing a new ceiling fan in the kitchen. He had the old one out and was trying to put the new on up but it wouldn't grab like he expected. He shined his flashlight up in the hole and, lo and behold, it was a dropped down ceiling. The original ceiling was two feet higher and made of beaded board. They had covered it with acoustic tiles and drywall. He showed me and asked, "What do you want me to do?" Tear it out, of course! So I took Cole and baby Clayton to Austin for the weekend while he tore out all that garbage to reveal what the kitchen should have been all along. He even found a window they had covered up and he popped a new one in. It was transformed from small and dark to bright and happy in a weekend by my weekend warrior husband.

Everything about that house was beautiful. When it rained on the tin roof, it was so cozy. Our front porch had the best breeze and we would always sit on the wooden swings when the kids were asleep and drink rum and talk about how we would never, ever leave that house until the day we died. We brought Clayton and Cooper home from the hospital to that home. Even though we were running out of room, we just made plans to add on someday.

I remember when the first idea came that we should go. I was in the shower one day fretting over bills and debt. Living on one income is not easy. I was praying, "Lord, I am so sick of worrying about money. Something has got to change." And the idea popped up in my head immediately: "Sell the house." I know it was not from me, because before that moment, I would never have considered that we would ever live anywhere else. Since we had never sold a house before, we had no real understanding about how property values can change. Especially in the Texas hill-country. We had only lived there four years. We had the realtor come out to give us an idea of what it was worth. Apparently, we had bought the right house in the right place at the right time. Our dream house became the answer to our prayers.

We put it on the market and waited. We made plans to build a new house. Months went by. Our realtor had a small-town attitude and not much experience. Having to show the house with a newborn baby and two toddlers was inconvenient to say the least. I had to keep it as clean as possible at all times because you never knew when someone was going to pop in. Then, I would have to load up all the boys, usually on a moment's notice, and get us out of there. We finally decided to get a new realtor. I remember having to fire the old one (he was very nice, just not very capable), and going to the office of the new realtor to fill all the paperwork out again, while wrangling the boys at the same time. That night I broke down in tears and cried, " I am so sick and tired of this! When is it ever going to sell?!" It sold the next day. And they were the perfect buyers. They did not ask us to make any repairs and they wanted a 30 day close.

The timing was perfect. We moved into an apartment to wait for our new house to be completed (or to find a house that was already done since we were not too happy with the rate the builders were going) and the first week there, my husband's Colorado job opportunity came up. If we had sold our house any sooner, we would have moved into a house instead of an apartment and would not have had the flexibility we needed. Once again, the plans we had for ourselves could not hold a candle to the plans God had for us. It was a pleasant surprise.