I love our house.  I love our neighborhood.  I love the schools.  But in 2020 when the world was falling apart, Mitch convinced me to see a house with him.  It was gorgeous.  It had a big open kitchen, room for a large table, a beautiful screened in porch, a SOAKING TUB.  It drew into light all the things I maybe DIDN’T love about our house.  Mitch is a tremendous cook! 7 fish meal every day after Christmas as a nod to my heritage and traditions.  Bacon on the stove on Sunday mornings.  Dinner EVERY night.  Watching him in that other kitchen and then coming home to ours made me a little sad for him trying to make exquisite meals in our little kitchen.

As 2020 dragged on and my health went from bad to worse, I dreamed of that tub and being able to soak my pains away.  Our tiny primary bath with single sink, toilet and shower started to feel cramped and uncomfortable (first world problems I know).  We put an offer on the house but lost it because it was contingent upon selling our house.

In 2021 we put our house on the market, contingent upon US finding house of choice…it sold in a weekend! Months went by, home tour after home tour was completed, offer after offer was made.  6 months later we withdrew our house from the market…we did not find house of choice.  The market was CRAZY.  People making all cash offers hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking.  We couldn’t compete.  We tried to purchase a new build, we were among the first 10 people to get our application back.  After telling us it was going to be first come first serve they decided to go to a bidding system instead and the homes that were supposed to start between 1M and 1.2M were starting at 1.8M.

We continued to tour homes but hope was dwindling that we would ever find something we could afford that was worth moving for. We finally came to the decision that it would be more affordable to do a major renovation on our house instead of continuing to look for another.  We hired an architect who told us her portion would take about 12 weeks if we were quick to reply with decisions and notes about changes. 7 months later we had our plans in hand and were ready to start the project! We got our bids back and were ready to go.  Now all we needed was a loan.  We had prior approval for home loans to move and this was less so this was the one part I didn’t think would be a problem.

I started to pack.  Boxes were brought in … what should I pack now, what could wait for later, what would we need over the next 6 months while we were living with my parents, what might we need if the work takes longer than anticipated, what will we never need again and just needs to be donated… I got about 25% of the way there when I stopped and waited.  Why didn’t we have our approval yet? When would the work start?? I finally heard back from our finance guy; the future value of the house after work was done did not appraise at high enough for us to take the loan we needed to start the work. We could not do the renovation we had been planning for almost a year now.  I had walked into wall after wall in this crazy maze we were trying to find our way through and now I was officially at a dead end. Whomp Whomp!

Even writing this down sounds silly. I started this post by saying I love my house.  We are blessed beyond measure with a beautiful home in a beautiful community that is alway full of friends and family.  SOOOOOO here we are, 4 years into this journey of do we stay or do we go, still unsure of our destination…I have decided to move back into my home in a way that is more comfortable and more organized.  And THAT is where this whole story fits into this blog and this website.  I hope you will continue to follow our journey, even if we don’t quite know where we’re heading yet, and maybe I can help some of you move back into your homes in a way that is more comfortable and more organized and help you love the home your in…for as long as you are in it!