The Progress

This weekend marks the third month we’ve owned #TheTackyBrownHouse.  I spent the fall in Arkansas with my father, he was dying and I wished to attend him as I did my mother eight years ago. The weeks had grown long and I was so very tired, and sad for losing my Dad. My father died in December, we had been looking for the house for two years, and then within weeks of returning from Arkansas we found the perfect home in Tennessee…right up to the moment with our cashiers check in hand, it was sold to someone else.  The heart wrenching moment that you know your dream has just become someone else’s home. Coming home though we began to look again. The houses were pitiful. Like Goldilocks, too big, too small and mostly waaay too awful. Roof’s caved in, yards needing sump pumps, just awful stuff really. We had promised ourselves we’d buy this home with cash, and we had very little of it.  Then we came upon #TheTackyBrownHouse and something about its trees said “home” and then we peered in the windows, and  it said “home” and when we went to the backyard the trees whispered “home” and so we called the realtor on a very cold evening and walked the house. She knew that we would not buy it, but I knew we would. A week later we did, for less money than we had hoped and with enough ignorance to be happy for what we had embarked on!

Three months is such a short time, unless one is living in a renovation.  Actually we only lived in it for two months, for the first month we lived in our home in Decatur while we worked on the brutal parts of the renovation tear down.  One day I’ll share the room by room renovation but today is not that day. We’re in the final rounds of interior rebuild, the master bedroom is the focus these two weeks. We took in a garage to become a tiny master bath and room.

The room was interrupted this weekend by a front house need for new fascia …the bold rebel was back (a wild squirrel that believes we invaded HIS territory and continues to try to take it back) and he stole a cupcake from my dining room table. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Les (Dh) was asked to IMMEDIATELY address the fascia issue, which he did while laughing often at my distress, and then we laughed together.

Dh has such a gift for renovation, he is precise, and careful, and makes our home look fantastic. The weekend weather was delightful, the greens outside so mesmerizing I went outside and read for most of the  spare moments I could find. Just. drank.it.in.

I had wanted a new lounger for Mother’s Day. New is defined as “for the least amount of money I can spend and get high quality” which in this case and most cases means used…and I couldn’t be happier to have found this one for $25. Hurrah!