La Maison

Our house situation.  I really don't want to write about it anymore until we actually sell our house, and then I can talk about the results of having faith and being strong, and....

However, John and I are coming to the realization that we may not be able to sell our house before we need to move, and we will handle that as it comes.  With each day that we get closer to physically moving to Michigan, I feel like I should feel happier, but there's always the dark cloud of not having sold our home hanging over us, and darkening the mood.

For our new house though, I feel like I need to let it go.  Our new house feels like a new member of the family, and I want to give it all the excitement and joy it deserves.

I did believe that when we moved to Michigan, we would build a house.  There wasn't really a discussion about any other option.  My mold allergies are a priority, and I didn't want to move anywhere that's had moisture issues.  However, as the time drew nearer, and it became obvious that we wouldn't have time to build a house before we moved to Michigan, John asked me to start thinking about buying a used house.

(As a side note, is that what a previously owned home is called?  A "used" home?  It just sounds wrong to me...)

We scoured every website for homes.  We had a couple of requirements to meet:

• We need land.  We have five dogs, and no amount of one-acre yard is going to work for any of us.  And let's face it--the neighbors would hate us.
• We need a short commute.  John has spent his entire professional life commuting, and for the last eight years, it's been 90 minutes (minimum) a day.  I was determined to live close enough to his work that I could join him everyday for lunch if I wanted, and close enough that if he needed a long run home, he could do it from work.
• We need space.  We're currently living in 4,100 square feet on the top two floors, and 2,000 square feet in the basement.  We have a lot of furniture.  However, I promised myself that we would downsize this move, because let's face it, John and I alone do NOT need 6,000+ square feet of living space for the two of us.  Most of the doors in our home are closed now, and I didn't want to repeat that.

The tricky thing is that we are moving to a small town (Chelsea), and the number of homes that meet these requirements is few and far between.  I honestly wanted to go and look just so that I could say to John that we needed to find a builder...and we needed to do it now.

Of course, we didn't really want to buy a house at all until our own home sold, but with five dogs, apartment living for a year or two wasn't going to work.  We were going to have to bite the bullet.

As we looked, we noticed a thing or two.  Anyone in the area who has a lot of land also has a lot of house...and charges for that.  Chelsea is on the outskirts of commuter towns for Ann Arbor, and no self-respecting Ann Arborite is going to live in a dump heap.  So, most of the homes were climbing into the million dollar range even though they were smaller than our home in Pennsylvania.  Too, there just aren't many of them.  Most of the really beautiful homes sit on an acre or less.

So I didn't have a lot of hope, but I really did want to exhaust every option before building.  Honestly, the idea of being able to move straight into a house this summer was very appealing to me.

If you've ever been house hunting, what my current realtor says is true:  each house has a feeling to it.  She says that she can sense death, or happiness, or stress in a home, and as we walked into different homes, I could feel that too.

There was one house that I would have bought on the spot if possible, but it was almost a million dollars, and part of it was a restored 1912 farmhouse which John hated.  At the end of the day, I couldn't figure out why he hated that house so much.  The restoration was beautiful, and the two new additions were to die for.  Turns out (and this took some serious cadging to get him to admit this), the old part of the house reminded him too much of his home as a kid....and trust me, there are some seriously traumatic feelings there.  So, even though the seller's realtor told us the sellers would entertain any offer and asked us to please make one (our limit was $750,000), we crossed it off the list.

There were several run-of-the-mill homes.  They were nice and cheap (mid $600s), but they had no personality.  They were mostly family homes where the banisters were still sticky, and the wood stairs and floors were obviously well-used.  John called these homes "beat up", and the term stuck as we looked around.  Too, they were generally on streets with the exact same homes on each side of the house itself as well as across the street.  And the yards were wide open with no trees so even though there was acreage, it still felt like the neighbors were right there.

There were also haunted houses in the $400s and 35 minutes away from Chelsea that John thought we could "make work", but I didn't even entertain the thought.  I would choose rental apartment living over those beasts....

In the middle of looking at all these houses, we came across a very interesting home.  14 acres, half grass, half wooded, overlooking a small lake (or a large pond, however you want to look at it).  Some people on the lake have docks but it's only for kayaks, canoes and paddle boards.  Seeing it online, I marked it as a "discard" because I thought it looked insane from the front.  It's a French-style custom home, and I swear the architect watched Beauty and the Beast before designing it.  Pointed dormers surround the house.  I was only looking at it because the realtors had thrown it in the mix.

No joke, I walked in that house, and there was a completely different feeling from any other house we had seen, or would see that day.  It was a feeling of peace, and comfort, and in all honesty, a feeling of "home".  I hardly had to look at any of the details.  I was pretty sure it was exactly where we were supposed to be.

One of the most beautiful features of the home is that there is a view from every window.  No joke, a lot of thought was put into the beauty of that house, and in bringing the outside in.  Too, it's at the end of a road, completely private.  And as much as John tried to find a flaw in the house, he just couldn't.  It is 20 years old, but it feels completely new.  The people have maintained it, almost to the point of obsession.  The landscaping is to die for, the kitchen and bathrooms are top-of-the-line, and the owners even keep large pads underneath their cars in the garage to keep the oil from leaking onto the concrete!  I kept my feelings though to myself because we still had some other houses to see.

That night, John asked me if I had to buy a house from the ones we had seen, which one would I buy. I told him that I would buy the French house and he could hardly even believe it.  He hadn't thought much of it at all.

And here, ladies and gentleman, I digress a bit.  This is how it has always been for John and me in our marriage.  I see the beauty in things whether it's encouraging our children to focus on music, or it's planning life-changing vacations, or whether it's buying a house.  John doesn't always see the value in any of these things in the beginning (because he's always looking for "the deal"), but he gives it time, and in the end, he comes around and sees what I see.  It was hard for him to pass up the "beat up" homes because of the good price, but in the end, he knew we wouldn't be happy there.  I've learned not to get frustrated when he doesn't see what I see in the beginning. because I know he will see it all eventually.

And so he asked our realtors to take us around to a couple of houses for a second look the next day, and the French house was on the list.  Mark tagged along too.

He too knew when he walked in what I knew, and Mark did also.  Mark was even on the master bedroom floor, making snow angels in the carpet, as well as checking out all the views from the different rooms by parking his skinny butt on their furniture.  As hard as we've been praying for the past two years about this entire experience, I can't imagine the Lord would leave us alone when we're trying to move on.  When we're trying to step into the darkness.  We haven't received any help in selling our house itself, but he's letting us know in other ways that our actions are in line with what we're supposed to do.  And buying a house (versus building) was going to save us a lot of headache, as well as a lot of money.

In fact, the house had been on the market for almost a year, and the owners had dropped the price $200,000 already.  We actually offered $100,000 less than that, and they met us halfway.  In the end, we felt badly, low balling them, especially because we could tell that they are an older couple (providing foot covers at the front door and asking us to use them on a sign with old person handwriting).  But it was up to them if they wanted to do it, and they did.

And through the two day process of making an offer and them countering, I felt complete peace about it all which makes absolutely no sense.  We will be carrying two mortgages now which absolutely terrifies risk-adverse me.  And the home is smaller than ours now.  I've worried about what we will do with all of our beautiful furniture.

However, every time I look at the house online again, I get more and more excited.  As much as I wanted to build a custom home that would have met my every want and wish, I can't deny that I think this house was on the market just for us.  And I can't wait to start making new Kennedy family memories there.

And with the move, I knew we needed to give our new house a name.  We will be leaving behind "The Kennedy Burren" (although it will remain our kennel name for registration papers), and we will be moving to "La Maison", or for those who can wrap their tongues around the French a bit better, "La Petite Maison".  We say it several times a day, and always with a French flair (think Le Poisson from The Little Mermaid) :-)

And if you want to see the house (although the pictures do it NO justice at all which is why I didn't even want to look at it), here's the address:  2982 Stonewater Way, Dexter, MI. 48130.  If anything, you can admire the amazing piece of property and picture yourself visiting us sometime in the near future :-)

Isn't that such a lovely address?  Stonewater Way?  I can hardly wait to order my new address labels.  And to start my new life in such a lovely place.