Finally Ready to Go!

It's been a long time coming! The house has been "Coming Soon" for almost 6 months now, but at long last, we're ready to sell. The realtor came out to take pictures for the listing today and it should be done after the weekend. We've been working so hard on getting so much stuff done around here to make it ready to sell at a great price.

We were blessed to have so much help along the way. We had a group of guys from the church come out to paint the whole exterior as well as trim some of the trees back, and a construction team (paid for by the church) repaired the rotten wood around the outside. (This was, by far, what took the most time-- and patience! It's not easy depending on others to do things when you really just want it done!)

Brett singlehandedly painted the front and back decks. His friend Steve helped him to completely replace the wood on the front, and a couple boards in the back. (It's hard to see in the picture, really, but the "after" is a completely different color, and Brett added the little patio area and the rocks you see on the right.)

He also became quite the accomplished gardener through all this. He originally planted tons of pretty flowers. Then the insects came and the hot weather, and construction workers with little regard for gardens, so he re-planted, not once, but twice. It turned out really beautiful.

My dad helped paint a couple rooms inside the house.

Steve also helped with some rotten wood on one side of our kitchen cabinets and beneath the sink (it's always been sunken in under there, as long as we've lived here, and now it looks amazing-- I can put things in there & they don't disappear!). Andrew "helped" with that project! :)


Our realtor told us granite countertops are big now and we can double what we paid for them when we sell-- we really hope so! They really do look good....

We packed half our belongings on a Pack Rat storage unit months ago (and surprisingly haven't missed a lot of it!) and have made 2 trips back since then-- so there is virtually no clutter in our house. We will continue to live "like we're on vacation" as we do showings and try to get it sold. We're praying it sells quickly and for a great price. (We have no money left to put into it!) We have the advantage of a great location and an inexpensive price for a 3-bedroom. It's not exactly a seller's market right now, but we're hopeful, and we have a great realtor. It's been a long road-- as we've been serving in Newton Grove, though, we know that is where God wants us to be, in order to better minister to our new congregation.

We have a place to move there, too! God blessed us beyond what we could have imagined in this concern. On the very first deacon's meeting Brett ever went to at NGBC, way back in March, a deacon in the church told Brett that he owned the house across the street from the church and that his renters would soon be moving out. He would rent it to us for less than half what we're paying for mortgage now. From his description, it sounded perfect for our family, and even bigger than what we have now. We were so excited-- everything was falling right into place!

Well, a month or two later, this same deacon told us he'd just closed on another house, less than a mile down the street from the church. It's about the same size-- only 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, but it has a formal living room as well as a den, a formal dining room and an eat-in area in the kitchen, and a screened-in porch area. It has a huge yard and is within walking distance from the city park. It's an older house, carpeted throughout, but when we looked at it, it appears in much better shape than the one across the street from the church.

So we were given TWO options of places to live. We couldn't have asked for a better situation. Granted, neither house is one we probably would choose if we were buying a house for our family. However, we do like the second house (the one down the street) and think it will work well for us. When we looked at it a second time, we started to get excited. The deacon even told us he'd put a door up on the den so we can turn it into a bedroom for Leah. (You have to go through that room to get outside through the screened-in porch side door, but there is a front door as well, which we'll use as our primary door.) There's no closet, but we can get a wardrobe. He also said he'd air-condition the screened in porch & put up blinds, so it will work great for a playroom-- about which I am so excited!

So now we're soaking up our last few moments in this, our first home ever. It's a little bittersweet, just thinking about all that has happened in this house. When we first bought it, Brett and I weren't even married yet-- just starting out, so excited about all our future had in store. We spent all our free time the month before our wedding putting our sweat and tears into painting and fixing things up. We moved in right after our honeymoon. We shared a lot of firsts in this house-- our first Thanksgiving, our first Christmas, our first anniversary, then our first pregnancy, our first baby. Our guest room was turned into a nursery. Then, two years later, our study was turned into another nursery as the first was turned into a toddler's room. This house has seen happiness and sadness, tears of joy and tears of frustration. Even though it's only been just over 5 years, they've been the most crucial five years of our marriage and our lives, and through it all, we had this house to call home.