This is a “first world problem” rant. Prepare yourself.

Our house struggles

My husband is a contractor. We built our first home 23 years ago. We were just babies. But we did a lot of the work ourselves and built a super cost efficient plan. The neighborhood grew up around us, we made good friends with our neighbors. It was fun! Soon it was time to sell because the house backed to a road and that road was becoming very noisy. 

So we moved up. We sold our house and luckily rented it back while we built house number two. Same neighborhood but further off the main road. The houses around us were a little nicer, it felt like a big step up. We built a great house and did a little less work on this one. 

At the time our plan was to build and sell every two years until we owned our home outright. Because we could build a home at cost we had pretty great instant equity. Then the market CRASHED. And I mean CRASHED. We worked super hard to even keep our home. 

We had both babies at the time, I had left teaching for a bit to stay home with them, my husband's job was at risk. Our town, which had been thriving just months before, was looking like a ghost town. Stores and restaurants were closing, new neighborhoods were left half built. It was eerie. 

Luckily we worked the system and kept our home but there were about 6 months that we were getting creditor calls and it was scary. Our two year plan for that house became 10 years. So that’s the house my kids grew up in. We became super close to all our neighbors. My sister and her family moved to the neighborhood as well. It was great.

We’d had our eye on a neighborhood since we moved to our town and a buildable lot became available so we quickly got a loan and purchased. Selling our children’s home did not sit well with them - I think they both still like to live in that home. We moved to a rental out in the woods that ended up being some of my favorite memories. (Although, sadly, I don’t think I appreciated it at the time.)

We built a lovely home. Had everything we needed. But this idea of selling every 2 years and continuing to build our stable wealth was nagging at me - it felt more pressing after almost losing our home. So we sold and rebuilt in the same neighborhood. This one we KNEW would only be for 2 years. The lot was less than ideal but we built a great home that we knew would sell well. 

We sold that home just over a year ago and we are now on a property that I dreamed of. It’s walkable to our cute downtown, it gets so much sun, we have a view of our town and the lot is a double lot - so it’s huge to us. We don’t have neighborhood restrictions so we have our garden and my pet chickens. My little urban oasis. 

However, I have taken my sweet family of four who have pretty much only lived in brand new modest homes to a fixer upper. My husband who builds new homes is baffled by this one. The kids’ rooms are tiny…like teeny tiny. The roof leaks. There is no heat in part of the home. The kitchen cabinets are an odd mix of old and new crappy ones. Sometimes the doors fall off. We have no garage so we have bikes and skis in our bedroom - sexy. 

Like I mentioned - this is a first world rant. Because we have a home. We have everyone under a roof. We have food for our table. We have our health. I fully understand that I really have no ground to stand on for this rant. But I’m going anyway.

I am a believer that things come into our lives for a reason. So I can’t figure out why this house has come into our lives. Why this house that is so discombobulated that to re-do it would cost as much as building a new home - because once you start on one thing it leads to 300 other things? Why this house with all its issues? Why this house with its tiny rooms? Why this house that no one in my family is happy about except the dogs and the chickens?

Yes, I pushed for the purchase. I fell in love with it. I had no idea the issues it would bring or have. I knew it was older, I knew it would be a little tight for us, but I felt called to purchase it. Yes, my husband was reluctantly on board and the kids were excited in the beginning until the reality of actually living in this house set in.

The cost to knock it down and start over feels beyond wasteful. The cost to remodel and make it into a home that works for us only brings up more and more issues that make the cost almost prohibitive. We are now thinking that we build on the extra lot and make this home into a rental. BUT that means we lose this big chunk of land in the middle of town. 

These things wake my husband up in the middle of the night. He’s a “new home” builder. With remodels you never know what you’re getting into. We have determined that we aren’t doing anything until my daughter leaves for college so for now we just get to wrap up in blankets and smell the old funk of this house.  

This house challenges me. Every time I feel settled something comes up. We realize it needs electrical work. We realize the deck has a beehive under it. I mentioned the roof, right? We are constantly shuffling our things around because of the lack of storage. It’s a money pit. But for some reason it came into our lives. This funny quirky home. 

I thought maybe if I wrote this down it might come to me. Still trying to figure out why.