journey on: the next one

As I mentioned, there are relatively few homes in this area of Pineville that have outdoor space, are in decent shape and are the right size for our family. It is very rare that one of those houses goes on the market. On my morning runs I just began praying that God would give us a house on Lakeview Drive, a quiet loop in the back of old Pineville.

There was a particular house that was obviously vacant that I kept my eye on. One morning in August 2018 there was a "for sale" sign in the yard. By the next day it was under contract. But a couple of weeks later I saw the sign again and ran home to tell Thomas that we needed to call the realtor.

When we looked at the listing online, there were only exterior photos. Red flag. And the majority of the selling points were about the neighborhood. Red flag. We called the realtor and asked to see the house that day. We learned that the house had been uninhabited for about four years since the owner passed away. His daughter owned the house and lived out of town so was struggling to maintain the property. She had very fond memories of growing up in the house that her father built and was quite emotional about selling. Red flag.

The first time we toured the house, we pulled into the driveway where the realtor was turning off the water main and sweeping water out of the kitchen door. We walked in the side door to an active leak dripping from the refrigerator water line. This leak caused the kitchen floor and beams to rot so that it was even spongy to walk on.

The realtor walked us through the house talking about how simple updates would make it inhabitable. (One of my favorite comments was that while there was no dryer hook-up, we could use a clothesline in the back.) We walked through and saw a split level with too many stairs, piles and piles of personal belongings, shag green carpet, layers of dust on window treatments, a wood paneled "dungeon", saloon doors, a pink everything bathroom...much more of a Hobbs project than fixer-upper.

This was the opposite of angels singing when we walked in. It felt much more like bracing ourselves for disaster. BUT it was on nearly an acre of land. And fortunately (or unfortunately?!) we knew that we could do renovations.

We had many discussions with our lawyer and realtor while on Thomas' family beach trip. We began making plans for improvements to the home. We secured a loan from a family member that allowed us to go under contract on the Lakeview house before selling the Johnston home. We chose to be thankful for the provision of a house specifically where we asked, even though it was not going to be a ready-to-move in situation. And even though the timing of the settlement with the developer didn't provide closure, we were grateful that we could still live on Johnston while beginning repairs. Micah could start school without a commute. When we would have wanted to get out of the conflict as soon as possible, God, again, gave us what we needed when we needed it.