How To Cool Off In Wendell

Gerald is one if Ben's co-workers and an awesome friend. He came over and spent his whole his day off to help us out. They worked on the wall that is diving ours and Wick's bedrooms. The stairs are going to be put in between the two rooms, so the dividing wall has to come down. It was incredibly hot (no AC in the house yet), so Ben decided he wanted to take us to the Wendell rock quarry so we could see how beautiful it is out there, and so he could jump in to cool off. He tried to talk Gerald and myself into jumping in, but we weren't feeling as adventurous that day. It's a big drop.

And The Demo Begins...

The initial process of getting all the trades lined up to start working on the house can take some time. Our builder, Chris, will start doing his work in about a week and a half. In the meantime, there are things we can and have been doing that has been fun for us to do together, and will save us money. Ben would do everything himself if he had all the time and new how. He really gets into stuff like this, is excited to learn, and Enzor is gracious enough to work with him and teach him things. This past week we have been working in the yard, knocking down walls, taking down molding, frames, and doors. We're keeping things we take out labeled, so it will be easy to put stuff back where it came from.

We gave Wickham a little rubber hammer, and he had a blast pretending to knock down walls too. Ben would say, "1,2,3 GO!" and they would hit the wall together. (don't freak out Mom Wick was on the other side of the room..not close to the real hammer)I hit the wall once...and put the sledge hammer down and said I was going back out to work in the yard.(hah) The walls are plaster, so there is much more work involved.

There are hardwood floors in the living room, but we weren't sure about the rest of the house. When we pulled up the carpet, we learned that there are hardwoods in the bedrooms. This means all rooms in the house have hardwoods, except the kitchen, so more money saved there! Having a "Green" house is an interest of ours, which is why we are planning on using cork flooring in the kitchen. It is environmentally sustainable, non-toxic, and great for people who like to go barefoot (like me). The best thing about it, for tree lovers like myself, is that the bark is harvested from the trees, so no trees have to be harmed or cut down.(and I think it looks cool, don't you?)

Welcome to Hollybrook

First of all, I can't believe I'm finally getting to write this blog. I had the idea to track our journey by blogging awhile back...and I just can't believe we're finally here...finally ready to start a new post about our new house!

...And, as a fair warning, I was never good in English class, so don't judge me as you catch all of my grammatical and spelling errors. and run on sentences.

Back in March, we found a house that we were just sure was the one. We thought it had everything we had been looking for. I wanted it so bad. I prayed and prayed asking God to please let us have this house. We had been house hunting for over a year and I just simply got impatient....and selfish. Then, God showed us something huge. There were several other offers on the house and we couldn't get our stuff together in time with the bank, so we couldn't get the house. We were devastated and I felt like God hadn't been listening to any of my prayers. Our lease on our townhouse was up by June 1st...and I just didn't know how we were going to find another house and go through the whole process again without having to move somewhere else in transition. I have moved 8 times in the past 6 years.......so moving two more times before it was all said and done was hard for me to swallow.

Then, one day I happened to be on Craigslist...because I'm addicted to Craigslist...and decided to see what houses were on there for sale. And then I found the Hollybrook house. The title of the add was "Unique Old Home With Charm". I fell in love. The only thing was that it was in Wendell, a small town outside of Raleigh. I love small towns, I grew up in one and always wanted to raise me kids in a place like that, but Ben is a city boy and I knew it would take some convincing.

I called our realtor Matt Peedin (who is truly one of the best people you will ever meet). Actually, let me just take a second to tell you about Matt, lover of milkshakes. I always looked forward to viewing a house because I knew he was going to keep us entertained with his stories, Eddie Vedder impersonations, and his song about hotdogs...which puts the Oscar Meyer one to shame. He was singing "Dream Weaver" at the attorney's office. Anyways, he has become our friend, our good friend, and we are thankful for that. So when I called him about the house I told him that I knew I had said before I had found "the house" but this really was the one! I drove out there just to see the area and when Ben got off work I made him drive out there with me again. He kept insisting the whole way that we were not moving to Wendell. It didn't take as much convincing as I thought. He fell in love too.

We made an offer not too long after and fought a lot of opinions and people telling us that it was too much work for first time home buyers to take on. We knew this was the house we wanted, and we both saw the potential in this old house. We were determined to make it our new house. So God did answer my prayers. He wanted to show us that what we think we need isn't even close to what he knows we need.

Closing ended up taking quite a long time, because we got approved for loan that factors in the costs of renovations into our mortgage (thanks God for the hook-up), so what we normally wouldn't be able to afford, we can now. The process was very tedious, and involved inspections, a structural engineer, and bids submitted for all of the work to be done. We had to go through every little thing that had to be fixed or updated, and send it in for the bank to approve. We are basically rebuilding the house. The kitchen and bathrooms have to be gutted, walls have to be torn down, and we need new windows, HVAC, plumbing, electricity, etc...on top of all that (no pun intended) we are converting the attic into a second level, which will function as a studio.....a place for me to finally make a mess. We'll talk about the yard in the next post...because that is a mission in itself. Now that we have closed, we can start the repairs and rebuilding.

Josh and Kate, my brother and sister-in-law, are rockstars for letting us stay with them through all of this...and thanks to Jaxon for sharing all of his toys with Wick...especially the water table...which I know he holds dear to his heart. Ben's mom has been so supportive in letting us stay with her also when we've needed to, and use her garage as a storage unit.

We are soo blessed to have so many talented friends and family members that have been able to offer advice and help, and some that are actually going to be working on the house. John Enzor, our G.Contractor, is a good friend of ours. We love him and his wife Dana, who I think, should also become a contractor herself. They have been renovating a home also, and have done a fabulous job. John has already proven himself to be super efficient and doesn't waste time. Brent Francese is our architect, fellow musician, and another great friend. I hope to post up his fancy drawings soon...so you can see how awesome he is too. Whether it's sitting around drinking his wife Jesse's famous margaritas, eating chicken pot pie at Paula Deen's in Savannah, GA, or skiing down (or should I say, "falling down", Jess?)Sugar Mountain, they are always that fun couple to hang out with...and cool enough to wait on you until you get your ski's back on. ;)

So this post is already super long but I wanted to catch you up on how we got here and who has and who is getting us further. We have so many people we feel like we need to thank, people that we don't even know personally, like teachers at my mom's school, that have been praying for us and sending encouragement our way.If you look in the picture above, you'll see a happy little boy running through his new yard.So many of you are the reason for that. Thanks. Stay tuned as we document our adventure in renovating our Boondock Bungalow!