Dear Reader,
Have you ever had a moment when you look around your current place of residence, make a mental list of things you’d like to do, things that would make you really love the space, and then you resign and decide to just wait for the next house?
You can’t execute your vision or live out your dream in this place, so you’re going to raise the white flag and imagine the day you can pack up and move on. The next house will be better.
You’ll love the next house.
I feel like I’ve been looking to the next house my entire life.
As an Army brat, I grew up in military housing. Enough said. When we moved back to the states from Germany, my dad bought a house and we didn’t see it until the day we moved in. My mom cried when we walked through the front door. And it wasn’t because it was her dream home.
When we moved to Florida, my brother and I toured model homes with my parents and we picked out a two story house we both liked. My parents picked out a different house. They were paying for it, so fair enough.
And then there was my shoebox studio apartment in college…
Then, like most newlyweds, Jeff and I moved from apartment to apartment and then we bought our first house – a small, ugly townhouse in a bad neighborhood. We then moved to this house, which wasn’t love-at-first-sight. It was just the best option that we could afford.
I think I’ve said the phrase, “In the next house…” hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
For me, dreaming about the next house was almost a hobby.
As a kid, I would draw pictures of homes on the back of church bulletins to entertain myself during sermons. It wasn’t just doodling. I would hand the pictures to my dad and tell him that’s the kind of house I wanted to live in. It was almost always a symmetrical, two story white house with shutters, flower boxes and a chimney. And a rainbow over it.
I would rearrange and redecorate my dollhouse more than I ever played with the dolls. That progressed to drawing house plans on graph paper when I was in middle school. Seriously. And, when I was in high school, I loved touring model and show homes with my grandma and mom for fun.
And I would fantasize about my dream house.
Before I go on, let me say a few things. I don’t think it’s bad to daydream or to look to the future with hope for the things you want. And I don’t think it’s bad to recognize a temporarily living situation as just that, temporary, and decide to not invest in projects you won’t get to enjoy for years to come.
But I do think there are times when looking towards the next house can rob you of the joys of your current one. And it becomes a heart issue. It can foster a lack of contentment and an ungrateful heart. It can go even further and deeper than that and festers into resentment towards your home and jealousy towards those who have what you want.
I think it’s easier to experience those emotions with beautiful homes at our fingertips through Pinterest, Instagram and blogs. There’s more to make you feel like your space will never, ever be what you want it to be. You might as well just look forward to the day when you can plant the “for sale” sign on the front lawn.
So, after being a habitual looking-forward-to-the-next-house-er for years, I have learned some things that have helped curb that tendency…
you are where you are for a reason
I really struggled when our house didn’t sell last year and the anticipation of buying an old farmhouse was squashed. The disappointment was sharp. The rug was pulled out. I know my fellow “home lovers” understand that.
In hindsight, I’ve realized that if we had bought one of the homes we were considering, it would’ve been very limiting. With the studio, I have the chance to try out a business space and, while I’d rather be paying towards something I own, it’s been nice to experience it without the commitment. I have a better idea of what I would want if/when we do buy a home with an outbuilding for the business.
And just a few weeks ago, Jeff decided to go back to school to earn his masters degree. That wouldn’t have been an option if we bought one of the homes we wanted. I’m now so glad that our house didn’t sell and we stayed put. We are right where we’re supposed to be. And I’m sure you are, too.
work on your skills, not your space
I learned this when Jeff and I lived in his parent’s basement for two years while he finished his undergrad degree. There wasn’t much I could do with the space, so I worked on skills that would help me when we could buy a home. That’s when I started working on furniture, decorative painting and upholstery. I developed a real love of furniture transformations, because that’s about all I could do!
And I would say that working on those skills has served me pretty well!
be intentional about gratitude
I wrote a post about this, prompted by Melissa Michael’s book, Love the Home You Have. I am so guilty of pointing out all of the things I still want to do in a space. When I look at our home and rooms through the lens of gratitude, it totally changes everything. I see the beautiful light we get in the living room, the glass doorknobs on the old doors, the great layout in the kitchen. I bet, if you’re intentional about it, you’ll find a lot of things in your home that you love.
don’t let the future rob you of the present
I have strategically done a certain amount of “waiting for the next house” when it comes to certain projects or design choices. There are just some things that don’t make sense for this house, given its location and the median home price in this area. If we planned to retire here, maybe that would be different, but we don’t and our decisions are made in that light.
But, that can be taken to the extreme, when you don’t do anything to make your home a space you love because you’re waiting. And that’s a missed opportunity. Sometimes the most ingenious and pretty designs can be created in tricky spaces on a tight budget. Work smart, yes. But don’t ignore your home altogether.
home is always worth the effort
No matter where you’re living…an apartment, a home, an RV, a townhouse, a castle, a yurt…it’s always worth the effort to make it into a home. It can be a small or simple or inexpensive effort. But make it.
It’s worth it.
As a former army brat, I understand the urge to move every two or three years! I am convinced no home is perfect, that there will always be a little something not quite right with it. But what joy to make that home uniquely yours! By the way Megan’s office is awesome! I do want to know, What can you do with a built in vanity with no legs and a streaked antiqued yellow high gloss finish? Have a great night!
This is one of those posts to save and read every few months, just to keep things in perspective! We are in a tiny home that I run a business out of, and are so in need more house and more land but are waiting to see if my husband will be transferred in the next year. We know we will move sooner rather than later but I still want to be “home” in the meantime.
Boy, did I ever need to read this post today! We recently decided that we want to move, so I think I have given up on our current house a little bit. There is a huge project in our front room that I have been avoiding for way too long. With the recent decision to relocate, I think I subconsciously gave myself permission to ignore the glaring dysfunction. The reality is, whether we move really soon or we stay put for a while, I still need to tackle this project! Thank you for reminding me to “bloom where I’m planted,” so to speak!
So well said. 🙂 As a pastor’s kid and serial mover I can totally relate. 🙂 We built our “forever home” a few years ago and are now considering downsizing and making better use of our finances to fund bigger and better dreams with eternal impact potential. It hit me earlier this year that I am SO happy in this house but I’ve never been “unhappy” anywhere we’ve lived. I really do only need my people and their love to make any place a home.
Seriously this post is PERFECT & couldn’t have come at a better time. My husband & I are in the process of finding our country farmhouse home & we been so caught up in the looking part that other small things we take for granted have been dismissed. I’m so excited to buy our 3rd home, but you’re so right on all these bullet points Marian!
Paige.Rose
from
http://www.TheQuaintSanctuary.blogspot.com
I am probably in a minority here, but have only lived in 7 different dwellings my entire life. My current house is my dream house, an old farm house, really old history. And it came to me at a difficult time in my life. After divorcing my high school sweetheart, living in the my dream house where we raised our two daughters. I got the house, but with two daughters going off to college, financially couldn’t hold onto it. And I struggled with that. But I chose to look at the whole situation as a healing moment. God was moving me to where I needed to be planted. And when I moved into this house with my current husband, I loved and hated this house…so much work to be done, and still needs to be done. But this is my house, I could see myself living here forever. I hope you are loving where God planted you right now, be in the moment, and make the best of it. Hugs!
I, too, was living in my dream house – a farm house built in 1929, 20 acres of land, all original v.g. fir woodwork, red oak floors, built-in bookcases with colonnades, an amazing built-in double sided buffet that could be opened from the dining room and the kitchen, a sunroom on the main level and upstairs, the original drainboard farm sink, wavy glass in the 3 over 1 windows … I could go on and on. Very little had ever been changed in the house other than light fixtures, which we replaced with salvaged ones from the era of the house. I LOVED that house. I have never, before or since, felt so much like a house was truly my home. I felt lucky every time I pulled in to the long gravel lane up to the house. I distinctly remember driving to see it when it was for sale and first being struck by the beautiful setting. One step inside the door, when I saw the kitchen sink – I knew it was my house.
Sadly, I was only there 8 years when my marriage imploded and I had to leave. I can honestly say that it physically hurt to no longer live there. Eleven years on, I still feel the ache for that house even though I now live in a very lovely home in the suburban neighborhood I grew up in – and I’m very happy here. I will likely never have the opportunity to live in a place like my farmhouse again, but I know my life is richer for having experienced such a deep, spiritual connection to the land and the soul of that farmhouse.
Does anyone else have problems viewing your site? I get so many script errors, and IE continuously stops working, every time I access it. I keep having to close out, and go back in, then there are the script errors pop-ups that come up over and over again, that I have to click MANY times, to get them to go away. I eventually get through, but its always an issue (script errors point to line #1092, if that helps).
I adore your site, and the problems accessing it are worth it, but I just wanted you to be aware. I don’t think it’s my computer – its new, only 1 month old, and I don’t have this issue with any other blog or site.
I don’t have any problems accessing. Maybe in your settings?
I use chrome not IE and have no problems.
I sometimes have problems with IE and much prefer Chrome as my browser – it works so much better. You may want to try a different internet browser.
I also use chrome. And I until I installed AdBlock I also had some problems with loading taking forever. With AdBlock installed I have no problem here or at any other site. Install it – it’s free – and you’ll love all the ‘noise’ going ‘poof’!!
No, you are not alone. We were having some script issues, but my tech guys fixed it yesterday. So sorry about that!
I love this post, it so rang true with me. I have just bought my first home, a beautiful English cottage in Yorkshire, and I am finally getting to do all the things which I’ve said would happen when I bought a house. In the past ten years I’ve lived in 15 different places, and it is pure bliss knowing we will be staying put here for at least that time again. At least, I hope so! But already I can see the limitations of this place for the family we dream of having in the future, and already I’m fantasising about a place way out in the countryside instead of on the edge of a village, but I think that is just in my nature, and it certainly isn’t stopping me from appreciating where I am, right now. We’re about to start moving the bathroom to open up an old set of stairs – our first big building project, and I am so excited to be able to design a room from scratch myself…a luxury I am sure many people never experience. It’s wonderful.
And re Mills’ comment above – I don’t ever have any problems reading your blog, so please don’t panic too much!
Thank you for this post! I am a P. K. and lived in a few personages growing up. My mom worked with what she had, but always wanted a home of her own. I have a lovely home and sometimes feel guilty yearning for a “dream home.” I’m learning the value of being content with my current home while making it warm, inviting and beautiful. You blog has definitely helped me with that! Ps – thankyou for the beautiful linen and visit yesterday!
I’m the reader you specified for this post, ha! I actually smiled when I read the title because, yep, that would be me!! But guess what… I have exciting news. After 25 years in the AF we are retiring in 18 days and moving in to our own house! We bought it 3 years ago and found renters to live in it while we are stationed half a world away. It’s been excruciating to wait but we’ve invested hours talking, sketching, buying antique light fixtures, modifying an old Coke cooler to be our kitchen island, and tossing ideas around while hunched over the floor plans. Meanwhile, our kids grew up and left home while we bounced from base to base. My favorite day is always the one where the moving truck leaves and I’m left to set up our home in a brand new space. Thanks for a fun post, Marian. I think some of us just have “the bug” and we’ll never tire of decorating our homes, real or imagined! P.S. I have the Playmobil dollhouse and just recently bought the carriage house that goes with it, on EBay. You are invited to come play with it anytime, ha!!
I am a current military spouse living in outdated housing and I can’t tell you how much this post means to me! We have yellow tinted walls and stained vinyl floors and I’m constantly saying the next house will be better. Maybe do a post about non permanent things that can be done to a house for those of us who rent?
I read your post today not once, not twice but three times. I know you didn’t write this post as a sermon, but it was a great sermon, a house sermon. So much that you said today applied to me at one time or another.
It made me think about something my mother said several years ago when she and I went on a Spring house tour. The homes on tour were all in upscale, luxury neighborhoods. At lunch, we talked about all the beautiful homes we had seen that day naming our favorites. My mother then spoke up and said you know the homes on tour today were bigger and in fancier neighborhoods but I didn’t see one that was any prettier than your home.
I came home that day not feeling envious but proud and happy. Bigger doesn’t always make a home more beautiful.
Dear Miss Mustard Seed,
Was that you that popped into my head a few weeks ago that said “stop dreaming about the next house and love this one you’ve had for a decade!”. I swear I just had this conversation with my self and methodically walked thru every room pointing out to myself the reasons I loved this house in the first place. Bigger, better, newer, older, when I have more time, when I have more money may not ever actually happen. Thank you for being real and reminding us to live in the now 🙂
Thank you! This is exactly what I needed to read today.
I was a military wife for eleven years and moved somewhat. That was a different marriage and a different life but I always tried to make due with whatever was handed to me. My second husband and I have been in this house for exactly 30 years and it was my dream house. But time and family change and there are things now that I would do differently but I am content to make due again. Live is always evolving. Love your attitude, Marian. I really think you have to have the hard times before you have the good times.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”. This immediately came to mind when I read your post. More people in the world need to have the same attitude that you do, mary m young. It makes life so much easier, don’t you think?
I liked your statement: “It was the best option we could afford”. Our home, which we had built for us 42 years ago, was also the best option we could afford. It still is. Minimally less than 1000 sq feet, it was very suitable for the 3 children we had when we moved in. Hbby built a wrap-around garage/storage/back entrance “space” (building law does not allow us to close off the actual back entrance area, but we had to close off the garage, insulate it and line it, to accomodate those 3 children 10 years later, as our family had doubled by then. 4 decades after moving in, with all other family members well establilshed in their lives, this home is just the right size for the 2 of us, as far as cleaning and maintenance goes. I’m so glad that we had to choose this home, because it was “the best option we could afford”. Love reading your posts, and thank you for your inspiration.
What a truly moving…..honest moving post. Touched my heart in ways I cannot mention.
My hubs and I are retired. We are “older”. We live in our dream home, just so. Of Tampa.
We have stripped this hôuse pretty bare and have a big FOR SALE sign in the yard right now.
We want to move back to KC, MO. We have picked out a dinky house in Blue Springs that needs alot of love. I am thrilled to be going backwards…….my daughters ansd grands live in KC. I would live in a cardboard box, just to be near them again.
We chose a smaller house…….that is certainly paint challenged…….needs new flooring………just reeks of not being loved……..and I want it more than anything.
Crazy huh?????? It’s not about “house”……….it’s all about “home”.
Lovely words of wisdom, Marian. And, you are SO right!
What a great post for women who love to read diy decorating blogs. So essential and well said. Love the subject “home is always worth the effort”. Very true.
Yes, work on your skills! This is such a great point. I never did, because it wasn’t our home so everything felt temporary. What a learning curve once we did have a home. I must say subscribing to wonderful diy blogs like yours have helped me make up the lost time though!
What a good read! I moved to the desert 9 years ago. Life is good here, but I can feel an unsettled want. I need to practice what i preach…bloom where you are planted. Looking around my nice home I feel very good in this house. It is not at the shore, but then again, we don’t have that house payment either! And never will. So…thank you for your words…I needed them today!
I too can relate to “It was the best option we could afford”. You might as well have written this post for me. I never wanted to live in a split level, but when we moved here, we wanted our three children to each have their own bedroom which meant a split level. There have been many times I have caught myself saying, “Not in this house. Maybe in the next house.” But you know what? This house has kind of grown on me. It’s where we raised our three children. They’re all off at college now, but it’s still the house everyone comes home to. It makes sense to show it some love.
Thank you, this is just what I needed to hear. My husband and I have recently retired and I’m so looking to downsizing and starting over. Unfortunately, my husband is not ready and loves where we are. I think if he says we can move, he’ll be admitting he’s hit his golden years. Anyway, I’ve been putting my thoughts into a new home and not much effort here; however starting today I’m going to look at this house differently and put some more effort into making it the home I’d like it to be.
I had no possibility of selecting “my dream house.” My husband left me when I was 44 and funds were tight (he had been a student forever & was finally graduating medical school). We had been renting. My dream was to own my own house — ANY house. I still had $5,000 of my pre-marriage savings but I had almost zero choice as to what I could afford. I finally found a tiny one-bath house in a decent neighborhood & managed to buy it, but holding onto it remained a major challenge. I worked two full-time jobs for 21 years, paying an extra principal payment each month (the mortgage was 9 3/4%; this was the late 1970’s) and had to skimp terribly on food and clothing. I furnished it with flea-market antiques & rejoiced that I had a home of my own, even as I scrambled to hold on. My HOME. MINE. It was a kind of mantra to me. I am now in my 80’s, live in a 1926 house in a different state & am surrounded by projects I likely will never live to finish. But I rejoice every day. MY HOME. Mine. Earned by the sweat of MY brow. I am truly grateful.
Thank you! You are always on point or close to the heart of my issues with my home. You and your blog are a blessing.
I have never had a home. I live in studio rentals for the last 35 years and will all my life. Yet my home is lovely,, decorated with antiques, fine art and always supremely clean. Love the home you have Is essential to inner peace and happiness. People that own home and are not happy with them are to me not happy with themselves or unlike you and I , they do not want to make any effort
Yes. In every place I’ve lived whether rented or owned, I made it into a place I could call home, a place to enjoy, a place to love. Good advice!
Good article…I have to say that I’m in my 60’s and just discovered blogging a few years ago; I think this hits home because it wasn’t until I started reading blogs, Pinterest and others that I found myself frustrated that I couldn’t keep up with all of the suggestions on how to decorate this and that…I love my home and I would have loved to have access to all of this information when I was much younger but I think that even reading blogs can “bog” you down…so I subscribe less and watch fewer You Tube “how to” videos and have returned to just loving my home “just the way it is”.
What a great post Marianne, what great advice to and oh how I can relate. Especially when your in a rented space (like myself) it’s hard to not think about “the next house”. What I have been working on lately for the past couple months. Thanks to Melissa and her Love The Home You Have book, I have been trying to love where I am right now, being grateful for what I have, own and can change in the space also the journey it’s taking me on. I have been adding some small touches here and there (soon some bigger ones) to make it our own. It really has been helping and I am slowly learning to enjoy it, in all it’s imperfectness…because isn’t that what it’s all about?
Thanks for the reminder Marianne
Lauren Baxter | Lovely Decor
xx
You are such a lovely person and it really comes across in this post. I agree with everything you say. I think your home is beautiful, and it has been put together with wonderful creativity. My mum, who was a very spiritual person would always tell her children, that their home was in their consciousness and they took it with them wherever they went. She was in an abusive relationship and had to move a lot, but always managed despite not having much money to create a lovely welcoming home for us children.I am always striving to make my home more beautiful, and hoping for that cottage in the country, but I do know to enjoy the here and now and be grateful for all I have. I often think how terrible it would be to be ‘homeless’ without a roof over my head or a cosy bed to climb into. Thank you for your honest and inspiring post, you are a joy! With love, Linda xx
I needed to read this. I quit working on this house because currently my husband is out of work and we are not sure we are staying in this location. I like my house but honestly I am on number 6 and have always been looking for the next house since we married. Think it’s time to just go ahead and do all the little projects I’ve put off and love the one I’m with.
This was God sent to me today. I have been so frustrated with our house. So many repairs need to be made with little to no budget to work with. I feel stretched already with my roles and tasks as wife, mom, teacher (we homeschool), homemaker and anything else that gets thrown in. It all makes me want to zone out. Thank you for this.
Marian, sometimes you write things that are so identical to my own experiences or “secret thoughts” it’s uncanny. I too, as a child, spent way more time decorating my dollhouse or a cubby in a nightstand over and over never really playing with the actual dolls. In elementary school, as soon as the teacher allowed us some free time to get out our big, fat, flat-sided crayons or our totally awesome 64 count box of crayons (still love that smell) I would draw the same thing, our red ranch house complete with white shutters, black antique milk can on the porch, the requisite black eagle on so many Ohio homes and finish with a stipling of white, red, and purple petunias just like my mom planted every spring.
Experts guiding us to our purpose often suggest we go back to our childhood and ask ourselves, what is it you loved doing as a child. I’ve always gone back to my crayons and art and design and houses…always. Perhaps you always knew Marian what your professional purpose was. It just took walking to it and through it organically to recognize what always was.
In 1984 at the age of 24 I bought my first house and have never stopped fixing up my houses. It’s been a constant in my life. I became an antiques dealer, a Master Gardener and designer and although it is not my profession, (I certainly don’t get paid for it) I have the soul of a designer. I can’t help myself. My husband and I just sold our accidental second home in upstate New York near Rhinebeck Village after he was transferred to NY. We bought a 1930’s lake cottage on a small, intimate lake in need of a lot of love but the location was a dream. We intended to move to NY and sell my “divorce house” here in Texas that I bought for me and my teenage daughter, but that idea changed once we closed and started working on the house every spare minute. Leaky skylights, banged up walls, bad craftsmanship from previous owners, outdated everything, moldy, musty smelling closets and a laundry list of things that needed updated, repaired and fixed was like peeling an onion. Between the two of us, we had tackled many different houses with DIY know-how and elbow grease, but selling the DFW house started to seem like a bad idea. The old cottage quickly became a permanent work zone. We lived in the kitchen and a small living spot. The previous owners left some barstools to sit on and a daybed which became our “couch”. We bought 2 gravity lawn chairs and air mattresses and that is how we lived when we were up there in our spare time between work, flying back and forth between DFW and La Guardia (only possible due to our flight benefits in the airline industry) for 4 years! I’ll always remember standing inside a closet feeling like the world was celebrating the London olympics while I was yet again sanding down drywall! The tears came and I resented the work left to be done before we could sell and move on. But you see, this house stole my heart. Those moments came and went, but being in the beautiful Hudson River Valley made it all okay. As soon as my husband would get home from his trip, we would change clothes and run off to Home Depot or Lowes in Kingston to get the never ending supply list taken care of. We had to cross over the Kingston bridge to get there. As we would come over the bridge, the breathtaking beauty of the Catskill Mountains would unfold before us…talk about purple mountain majesty. I felt a moment of gratitude every single time. We drove through golden forests just to get home and autumn OMG. I learned to tune in to the sound of geese flying overhead, the chirp of birds, the scattering of our resident chipmunks …gratitude. Everyday the lake was our muse. Like a box of chocolates, we never knew what a day would bring…herons, egrets swooping in and landing in our yard right before us and of course deer (maybe too many as they liked to munch my newly planted hydrangeas). It was wonderful sitting on our back patio watching out over the water and waving to the Kayakers floating by simply enjoying the true four seasons of the north as our friends sweltered in Texas.
The house was a work zone for the four years we owned it. Basically we knew we were fixing it up for the next owners to enjoy and THAT was hard to swallow at times. I don’t regret fixing up the old girl, she needed it and we were happy to live part- time there enjoying the good stuff about the property even as we offered up blood, sweat and tears (literally). With all her new walls painted in soft whites, gray blues and soft gray-greens and beautiful original hardwood floors and windows looking out over the lake, new landscaping, well, almost new everything, she was a new version of her old self and she smelled better too! No more musty, moldy smell coming up from the dirt basement. She sold quickly to a lovely young couple from the city who “got” her, imperfections and all. They understood they were her new stewards and planned to get married there this past July. How lovely is that? Although that cottage took a lot out of our time and effort which could have gone elsewhere, the experiences I had up in Rhinebeck are priceless.
The very first Rhinebeck Country Living (magazine) Fair was held there and I met the editors of Country Living magazine, Jen and all her Earth Angels and Jo Packham, creator of Where Women Create magazine which to me, a long time subscriber to those publications was like meeting my personal rock stars! The beautiful Hudson River Valley was going to be hard to let go of. Giving the cottage up was hard but my husband reassured me, “we’ll find something better”. “No, we won’t find something better, we’ll move on in life and find something different, but not better” I said.
I don’t expect to find an old cottage, on a beautiful small lake again, but I will keep in mind the things that worked and the things that didn’t work and tack them to my wish list on my current real estate hunt.
Funny that you posted this just as I walked in the door from yet another appointment with my realtor here in DFW real estate market. Here, we have typical suburban homes, an abundance of Mcmansions, and houses just seem to all look the same. No farmhouses, cottages or bungalows to be found. We are still in my sweet “divorce” house I bought 11 years ago for just me and my daughter. After closing on the sale of the cottage last Thanksgiving, we packed up our tools and kitchen dishes having never really moved in and made our way back to Texas to regroup and figure out what’s next. But my maybe-a-little-too-small-house-that-I-never-let-go-of while in NY has stood here with arms wide open, still pretty, with all the improvements and gardens I have made over the course of 11 years looking better and better to my eye in comparison to what I’m seeing at twice the price! She’s been with me through divorce, kids off to college all grown up, and a second marriage. Maybe she’s a keeper.
I moved my furniture all around my dollhouse too. I put the dolls in when I was done playing with it.
I didn’t really play with them. I made furniture, curtains, rugs, everything. It was so magical!
I so needed to read your post today, and so thank you so very much!!!
I only wish that I had your talent of making everything feel and look pretty. Miss Mustard Seeds postings make your home, new studio, and all of your furniture and accessories look so well put together, and so well loved :-).
My husband and I met and lived on St. Croix, USVI for a very long time. I for 27 years and Steve 30 years.
When the oil refinery that Steve worked for closed in 2012 we moved from our lovely island home of 27 miles long and 8 miles wide or thereabouts, to one of the 4th largest cities in the country; Houston! Yikes!
Although Steve has family in Houston; never in our wildest dreams would we have chosen Houston, but Steve is too young to retire just yet.
Steve was hired to work in Houston within the same company he worked for on St. Croix, and we are both very grateful his career is still as it should be; progressing in the final goal of retirement in less than 10 more years. I’m grateful too that winters in Houston are quite nice and or quite tolerable. Summers however are completely brutally hot and humid. Oh well. Afterall we don’t live in paradise anymore.
We had planned to rent until we had the chance to figure out what part of the city would be a good fit for us, and to eventually buy a home.
One sunny day in our search for a rental, as we were walking out the door of one that we both liked with our relocation/realtor person, it got rented right out from under us! Fortunately and sometimes as luck would have it, there was a house almost identical to it across the street and it was for sale, and so we bought it!!!
Our new home to us is “inside the loop.” Meaning, not far from downtown. Luckily too we very much like all of our immediate neighbors, and know many of them by first and last name too!
Inside the loop, I’ve found that people are generally really quite friendly. Not exactly what I would have thought considering the size of Houston!
The home we bought is a beautiful two story, New Orleans style almost and a little more than an arms length from our neighbors. Close-very-close! Now about 13-15 years old, it’s a reproduction style with beautiful hardwood floors, crown, baseboard, window, and doorway moldings and with high ceilings, and pretty good natural lighting too. Fenced tiny front and back yard, and a tiny 2 car garage.
Within the first 2 years, I managed to make it my own, or at least with what I am capable of, by painting mostly neutral colors in all rooms and almost entirely all by myself. Then I preceded to paint the interior and exterior of our garage too. Then I painted the 3 exterior balconies of our home, then the lower front, sides, and back exterior; or up to as high as my 8′ ladder could reach. That was only to the very top of our lower windows. Including too the windows and all the trim work, on lower level. At that point, we hired professionals to paint the rest :-). I’m afraid of heights, and at my age I was quite satisfied that I had given it my all and then some, in the painting department anyways.
None of our upholstered furniture in living room that we shipped from STX; (3) pieces – works in this house, so that’s where my biggest dilemma still to this day lies. Upon entering our home is our living room. Beautiful fireplace and simple but pretty entertainment center, then emptiness…
Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the “minimalist” approach, but what I see and feel instead is emptiness and loneliness within our home. It’s crying for help if that’s possible.
We brought with us a beautiful hand made mahogany – I think – entertainment center that we bought at a yard sale many years ago. We even know the “Cruzan” man that made it; small island:-). It is a Danish – mid century style.
For the past 3 years at Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries and everything in between I’ve vowed to forgo any passage personal spoilage for maybe someday to find in mid century style; 2 loveseats, 2 accent chairs, an ottoman for a coffee table, maybe 3 end tables tops, an area rug, and lastly curtains for the 5 windows in our living-room!
Unfortunately, thus far my husband and I can’t seem to agree on anything… And then there’s the money; well that’s a big one!
I’m thinking towards 2 love seats over a sofa because in my opinion, sofa’s “comfortably” only sit (2). Therefore in my opinion, they take up too much space. If seating 3-the middle person as I have been a “middle person,” on more than one occasion feels awkward and uncomfortable. Not knowing which conversation to join in on. For me anyway, it was a challenge to join in on both conversations! Socially; I’m challanged quite enough thank you.
Long story short, sorry… I so wish I had your vision… Obviously I do not. Anyway, thanks for your incouragementful words of loving the home you’re in. Incouragementful… Is that really a word? Guess so :-).
Anyway-Kind Regards,
Anne-Marie Strahan
I needed to hear this tonight. Thank you. Seems like lately I’m so overwhelmed by the projects that need done that I am anticipating my husbands retirement in the next few years just to start over in something new. We have a beautiful home that needs some love. Need to do one corner at a time. That should help me be less overwhelmed. Thanks!
I so needed to hear this. We live in a house that my in-laws picked out for us to live in while my husband was in law school. They had looked at rental homes, but none seemed right and all were way more expensive than the cost of a mortgage, so they generously bought the home and we rented it from them. They sent us pictures of what it looked like (we couldn’t actually travel with them at the time because my husband was working and couldn’t take time off, plus the cost of traveling to another state was prohibitive).
The space size-wise was good, much larger than the small places we had been living in California, but the kitchen was the original kitchen from the 1950’s and in this case it wasn’t a good thing. Plus, when we got there, we learned that the previous owners were smokers. Even though carpets were cleaned and walls were painted, the smell had seeped in, and it was really hard to get rid of it. And we were not allowed to paint any of the trim or the kitchen cabinets.
Fast-forward four years later, and we are still in this house. My husband has graduated and is working here, which we are so grateful for. His parents again generously signed the house over to us (again, it was cheaper to live here than to rent somewhere else, and we couldn’t afford a down payment on a new house), giving us the ability to paint trim and cabinets now, and of course the responsibility of paying for repairs too! 🙂 We are slowly getting rid of the smoke/old-person smell. That is the hardest thing for me, for some reason, or seeing certain things that I would love to change but can’t right now because of finances. But I love what you said of working on your skills when you can’t work on your house. I am going to pin that one in real life somewhere in my house, because I feel like that is something God has been gently drawing my husband and I both to. I am going to start tackling a re-upholstery project soon on a sofa that was left by the previous owners, and then the thrift shop chairs that we got for $12 each. We are slowly painting the trim, and took down some of the cabinets and painted the rest!
I don’t want to turn this into a post, but thank you so much for sharing this. It truly encouraged me today.
This post almost brought me to tears. I think all of my life I have been a “look ahead” person.
Always dreaming that the next “whatever” will be better then what I have. Not realizing what I actually had at that moment.
I’m sure there are others that have suffered hardships way beyond mine. I have to keep that in mind and be grateful for what I have on a daily basis in order to keep my head on straight and to make sure my momentum moves forward toward something. Sometimes it’s just so easy to sit back and feel sorry for yourself. This entry hit a nerve!
I have to say that I have a unique and maddening situation as far as “my” home. The home I live in, it’s not mine and even if I reside here the rest of my life, I’m not sure that it ever will be. See, my husband and I “temporarily” moved into my MILs home so we could build our dream home on the lot we owned deep in the woods behind hers. Everyday that we were there clearing the land, I could see our home like a water color painting with the sun rays shining through from behind. Then it all changed in a blink of an eye. My BIL who lives in the same home was in an auto accident that almost took his life. Shortly after, my MIL was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Both of them needed care. Slowly I saw our dreams fade into nothingness. At times I felt like I was in a nightmare. Years have past and at times, I still do. Things haven’t changed much and I feel trapped inside walls I can not touch or change. I often think of all of the money, time and heart we put into that piece of land knowing that at my age and in our situation, there won’t ever be a dream home built on that dirt. It is incredibly sad and makes my heart ache. It is hard to even walk back there anymore.
After reading your entry, I will try and keep positive thoughts and visions of somehow trying to transform our “home” situation into a better one, some way, some how. Today I’ll be grateful that I am alive and that my 3 boys (8, 18 and 23) are healthy and that my husband loves me unconditionally and provides for our family. Today I will be happy in these walls even if it is not “my” home.
I have read your blog for years. This is the wonderful posting to date………….
Thank You! The attitude of gratitude. I try to put each day in Gods hands, Even if some days I really don’t like it.
Your house is my dream house… ironic how that works.
We do hope to sell it in a couple of years, if you want to move to a small town in PA! 🙂
We are currently living in our 20th house in 21 years of marriage and still have yet to “settle” anywhere. (Hubby’s still serving.) This is a reminder that so many military spouses need, myself included. Thanks Marian1
Your post is spot on!!
Learning to live in the ‘NOW’ is something we all should heed. Your post was so honest and sincere, we should all take a lesson. Your home is lovely, key word is home—not house.
Thanks for the reminder, Sandi
Wow, this post drew a lot of comments! I am blessed to be living in my dream home. It started out as a place to use for the weekend and it was a wreck. I had to trust that my vision would make it the special place it deserved to be. It’s been 18 years and now we live here full time. It took being patient and choosing a project a year to renovate and now we are in the process of rebuilding our kitchen.
I also clicked on your link to Melissa Michael’s blog and with one glance I recognized the setting. I read on and sure enough Seattle. I plan on ordering her book as I love supporting local talent and I am sure I can learn pointers from her book. Thank you….
You and I are kindred spirits. I could have told the exact same story/thoughts… Except not the military background. I have decided to live in my current house like I will be here forever because already I have been here a lot longer than I planned. All in Heavenly Father’s timing…
Amen.
Words of Wisdom very well said! I’m sure that almost all of your readers, myself included share your sentiments and will benefit from you sharing them.
XO
Where can I purchase the cow pic?
You can purchase a print of it here… https://www.etsy.com/shop/pinkgloves2?ref=l2-shopheader-name
Where can I purchase the cow print?
Wow! This brought tears to my eyes! I have fallen prey to this very thing so many times, and yet you hit the nail right on the head when you spoke of gratitude! Complaining is like telling God that His gifts to us and care for us are not good enough! Being truly grateful can certainly change your perspective! This was like a devotional for me! Thank you for the great read!!
Marian,
Thank you for sharing your heart!
When you have a creative mind it is always problem solving spaces, comparing and contrasting all options, and all investment levels. The balance point, as you said, is to spend more time in gratitude for what you do have and for the continuing inspiration for what could be. If you always have enough then you will have joy and what is created in your future becomes a bonus!!
I enjoy your willingness to share your journey and your encouraging attitude!!
In gratitude,
Create onward!! 🙂 — Stephanie
I think that this article really hit the nail on the head. It’s important to be grateful in the moment. I like the part about working on your skills. I just purchased a home and of course I have all of these
pintrest boards that require $$$$, but I’m taking it one day at a time and enjoying little projects that I can do and don’t cost a fortune.
Dear Marian, I’ve admired the white cow painting in your dining room for a couple years and would like to know more about it. Do you know who the artist is? By any chance are there prints of this magnificent painting? I love it more every time I see it! And the gold frame is perfect! Thank you!
I found Eulalie on Etsy! Hurray!