Three years ago this month, my husband and I purchased our first house.
We were all kinds of exited.
Sure, it was just a small, three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom ranch, with no garage, and begging for some major updating. But it was ours. We owned that mother.
We had high hopes for our little ranch. It had potential. It had spunk and personality.
So we started making plans. We would renovate the kitchen top-to-bottom (which hadn’t been done since the 70s). We would add a garage – or at least a carport. We would put in replacement windows. We would make the half bathroom into a full. The thought of adding yet another full bathroom on to our bedroom even crossed our minds (the words “master suite” sounded so nice).
But first, we would paint the interior. It would be something fun for us to do together. As a couple. A couple who would be getting married in three months.
We would go full steam ahead!
Well, our honeymoon rolled around three months later, and guess what? We hadn’t made much progress.
“Not much” meaning “not one iota.”
So we used some of our wedding money to hire painters, and when we came back from our honeymoon, ladies and gentlemen, we had progress.
Now that we had gotten past square one (we were at square two?), surely tackling the rest of the house plans would come easily, right?
Well, in a word… no.
And little by little we started to get less and less excited about our piece of “potential.” Its personality started to wear thin on us, too.
So much for spunk.
Instead of thinking about the progress we could make on our house, we were already planning for our next house.
Throughout our first winter there, every time I had to go outside and shovel snow off the car before work, I would declare that my next house would have a garage.
When summer rolled around, my husband would prepare himself every morning for his sprinkler dance – making sure that every part of the lawn was getting water, while trying to dodge the rotating spray.
And, of course, there were the ceiling fans in the summer, which simply pushed around the damp, muggy air.
That’s it, we vowed. Our next house would absolutely, positively, without a doubt have to have three things – a two-car attached garage with an automatic door opener, an in-ground sprinkler system and central air.
And so last year at this time, when we purchased our second house together (the Dream House), you better believe that we checked those three things off our list.
And we said good-bye to our devoid-of-all-personality little ranch.
Well, you know the saying, “Revenge is a dish best served cold?”
Someone must have given that little ranch the memo.
Because it’s now been exactly a year since we’ve moved into the Dream House. And guess which three things in the Dream House have decided to fail on us – all within the same week?
That’s right.
The automatic garage door opener? Busted.
The central air? Leaking.
The in-ground sprinklers? Broken.
Well played, little ranch, well played.
I guess you do have some spunk in you yet.
Cross-posted at New England Mamas as “If Those Walls Could Talk”
Oh, don’t that just figure?! For what it’s worth your hours is stunning! So much charm. I’d love a cute home like that one day 🙂
I just wrote about karma… 🙂
I love your colonial too!
What happened with our first house… we fixed everything. Added a white picket fence, filled it with joy and love, did the kitchen, took the carpets off to let the original floors shine. And the day we put the house on market, the house got mad.
Our toilet leaked to the basement, and I had added one of those blue bowl refreshers, so both, the bathroom floor and basement got all blue… A bee-family moved in on the corner of the roof (and they visited in often). Two windows broke. Dining room chandelier came down.
Among that a prisoner had escaped from a prison almost 100 miles from us, but somebody spotted him in our small town, and on our street – and they had cops, police dogs etc. running around looking for him. And it was in news, and I happened to be outside with kids the next day, when they wanted to interview some locals (for the evening news) and asked me in the front of our house with the sale sign “Do you feel safe in this neighbourhood?” (it was the best street of the town..). Our agent wasn’t too happy 🙂 But it sold, and we made over 50K, so it all worked out..
true! i LOVE the photos of both homes 🙂
Seems like something is always breaking around here. I’m starting to think apartment life would be pretty good about now!
HA! “..well played..” It’s amazing how alive our houses become when they’re out to get us!!!
Thanks for the blog comment! “When it rains it pours” w/ houses–that seems to always happen with us,too…here’s hoping the ‘rain’ stops soon!!!
LOL! Isn’t that always the way? Well, even without the 3 big criteria, it’s still a gorgeous home!
Wow, that’s a beautiful house, even with the 3 things to fix! We’re still in our little ranch, working on all of the things to fix and fix up to make it our ‘dream’ house, lol. We do have 2 of your 3 though (garage and a/c) and our dry, brown grass is the result of not having the 3rd. My list of ‘must haves’ has changed – currently includes ‘usable’ fourth bedroom, ‘usable’ second bathroom, see the trend here… 🙂
Wow not the time of year you want your AC to stop working. I hope all three are fixed quickly with minimal cost…Especially the AC.
I think sometimes things have to break so that we remember to appreciate them….all at once though, that’s rough!
Your house is gorgeous! I can’t wait to visit!
Hehe! Sorry, girl, but THAT’s funny! But you have beauty here, your home is gorgeous! We bought our third, and turns out it’s a rather expensive fixer-upper (needing a new roof!). xo
Murphy’s Law! Both houses are very nice, especially your second. That is funny, I think all young couples have these visions of the wonderful things they can do to their house, then reality and lack of time sinks in. We bought an older charming house as our first (after living the condo life which was sweet); it had great bones, we painted inside ouselves, hubby even put in a new backsplash on his own (took 4-ever, but it was beautiful). But we also got sick of no garage, limited space, esp. with baby on the way. So we moved to the burbs – 7 years ago, so this is the year we’re doing a lot of work, ie. roof, main floor, kitchen etc… It is well on its way to becoming more of our “Dream home, but we’re still buying those lottery tickets!
It is so frustrating when things like that happen, especially in combination, and especially when it is all pretty big-ticket items!
The story of the first house sounds similar to ours (except we had central air; we live in the South!). Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to learn our lesson as we proceeded to purchase another house that needs some pretty significant cosmetic work (painting walls, painting trim, replacing counters, etc).
Hope you get things back up and running pretty easily and quickly. Your house is lovely, BTW.
I kid you not, last weekend I was so annoyed at my husband because we never did the upgrades we promised ourselves we’d do. (Notice how I’m annoyed with him, not me. It’s a coping strategy). Anyway, we’ve now moved our discussions to how we’ll save our money and put the upgrades into the next house.
I’ll hold my breath.
Your home is beautiful, even if it is being difficult! 🙂 Our second home was full of potential that we never got around to working on!
HAHA! That really sucks!
I heart your house!
Janie and all others out there! One of my favorite poems in the whole entire world (and one I used to require my high school students to memorize… oh, that evil English teacher!) is this:
Although I conquer all the earth,
Yet for me there is only one city.
In that city there is for me only one house;
And in that house, one room only;
And in that room, a bed.
One woman sleeps there,
The shining joy and jewel of all my kingdom.
Ancient India
If you are the voice… or the subject… or both!… of this magnificent thought, then you understand that love is indeed the strongest force in our lives, and everything else can be fixed, remedied and/or resolved with a little time, a little money, and lots of patience!
Mom – Pinks & Blues Girls
Unbelieveable! Homeownership is such a blessing most of the time, but the rest of the time it is a curse! So much to do to keep things running and looking nice. So much money invested in changing it to look just how you want. How ironic that those things on the top of your list were the things that are now on the fritz. What a pain! Good luck in your home repairs.
Hmmm so it’s seems the little ranch house is having the last laugh! lol Isn’t that always the way it goes, though!! I’ve always said, the more gadgets something has, the more chances you get of something breaking down with it!! xoxo
Oh man! That stinks! And that ranch house looked sooo innocent! LOL.
When I was in my parents house we had no central air. I vowed I would NEVER live in a house without it- so far, so good.
I LOVE the new house, it’s so beautiful!! We have had to forgo home ownership for the moment as our life is in a transformation process- but when we did own a home, I LOVED doing things like painting walls, etc.
Well, that just sucks! At least you get to park in your garage- ours is the hubbys ‘shop’ and it DOES snow here! He cleans my car off though, as I like to point out that is a ‘guy’ job, and I tote around a vagina.
Classy broad, aren’t I??
Oh wow! All three in the same week? How ironic! I hope you get it all fixed quick! Love the new house though – it is very pretty! 🙂
Jane, your 1st house looks like and reminds me so much of our house. 🙂 No wonder you enjoy seeing our progress… you lived our life! hehe… I couldn’t help but think when I read the “ranch” portion of this post… “Welcome to my WORLD!” Your current home is GORGEOUS… nice upgrade! 😉
This is a great post! There is no such thing as a “Dream House” they all fall apart in one way or another
Great post! I hope you can get those things fixed……fast! 🙂
Both homes look great! I can’t wait to tear out walls and start replacing things, it’s been a dream of mine. I just hope that when the time comes I’ll still be all for it. I have a while before I own a home, but I’m getting pretty scared! My biggest fear is water in the basement. I’ve seen a few rentals with wet basements, yuck! On top of that my mother now needs a new sump pump because the rain has caused her basement to flood. When I visit, I stay down there but now I’m in the living room. I can’t stand a wet basement!
(My name rotf~!!!!!)
Big difference between house one and two! In such a short period of time too. You need to email me and let me know where you dug up the lucky pot-o-gold and let me know if I can have some!!!
Sucks about all three things going out at once…I can deal with Manually opening the garage door and I can deal w/ the sprinkler going out…but if you mess w/ my air…well were fightin’. (Of course I’ll be at a friends calling you on the phone arguing about getting it fixed but I’ll STILL be pissed!!!)
I love the post. Very inspiring, Jane. Now I am very enthusiastic about having a house.
Your second house is very beautiful, Jane =) Congrats.
What a cute post! I totally hear you about having a house! There always seems to be something that needs to be done, fixed, added, etc. *sigh* My mom always said that “A house is just a house. A home is what you make it.”
You have a beautiful house, Jane! 🙂
i loved your mom’s comment! i love my little townhouse because that is where my husband lives.
i also have to second Chrissy, you have a beautiful house.
For what it’s worth your home is beautiful… 🙂
both homes look beautiful, way better than our 1st two (rentals). So nice to have a good home now!!! im loving it so far. minus the one room w/ paneling!!! ew… i wonder if they’d let me paint over that 😉 ill wait before I cross that hurdel and step on any toes.
what a beautiful new home!! I would give all of those little fix er up problems to be able to live there right now 🙂 great post.
I feel your pain girl, I feel your pain. We have been in our first home for 7 years now. 6 years too long if you ask me! Everything that could have gone wrong has. What’s worse it that no houses near us are selling and we have found our “dream house” and can’t sell ours!
But at least there is nothing structurally wrong with your home, so that’s good. AND it’s a gorgeous home too!