so - about the house

Today makes 11 years

that we've lived at this address.

(You can read a bit more about that decision here)

This 'building a house' dream

that we are finally realizing

has been a long time coming.

Since we moved here,
we've added 2 children to the family,
and married off 3,
all while attempting to save money to build.

The house we currently live in,

without the LEM
(you can read a little about the building of it here, here, and here.
Oh, and here's another and another
and another post)
is just under 1000 square feet.

( LEM = Loukota Expansion Module;

basically a 2 story(ish) shed built on skids

that we added when Marcos, a young man from Belize,

came to live with us in 2011 )

We've had as many as 9

but no fewer than 7 people 

living here in these 11 years.

The house was poorly built, 

and just as poorly maintained.

Tyler, TJ, Lana, and Tony

(and sometimes Brandon helped too)

worked over 1,000 hours 

just to get the house habitable.

(I was home in FSM with babies.

Always home with the babies...)

It has no insulation,

except for the stuff we had blown into the attic

after we got our first electric bill and it was almost $500

and we had been freezing.
(we heat with electric space heaters
(I can't even guess how many we've gone through over the years!)
and use window units to cool the air)

There was no hot water in the kitchen,

so Tyler brought some there with a pipe that runs across the ceiling

because it would have frozen if he'd put it in the attic.

(When we bought the house, 

we'd only planned to live in it one year,

so I had told Tyler I could manage without hot water in the kitchen...

Bwahahaha

I am so glad he didn't listen to me!)

Termites had been enjoying living here for quite some time

when we moved in.

We were willing to let them stay,

but they nibbled on one of our John Bell Jr prints,

so they had to go.

(John was our neighbor in Fort Smith,

and he gifted us a few prints over the years,

and they are precious to us)

Our floors are so uneven

we keep a stash of wooden dominoes to use as furniture level(ish)ers,

but still, pretty much every hinge is whacked.

There are holes so big in the dining room floor,

that if your chair leg hits 'em just right, you'll tip over.

And the only thing keeping things from falling 

to the earth below

is the carpet.

If the table isn't settled into just the right spot

the whole thing swings from it's center legs.

We have no dishwasher

(though for a time, we did have a portable one that leaked

and you had to thoroughly wash the dishes by hand 

before loading them)

The 'counter top' next to the stove

is the top of the (top loading) washing machine.

We have to turn off the air conditioner in the summer

before we run the vacuum

or we'll flip the breaker.

Of course, there is only the one bathroom

and frequent septic troubles.

But

we have almost 10

really beautiful acres

at the end of a .4 mile dirt road

that begins with an archway of trees

and dead ends in our drive

 

~
People are always wondering
'how long until we move in to the new house?'

Honestly,
we have no clue.
Still a few months, for sure;
maybe several.

We are doing as much of the work ourselves as we can
plus doing all sorts of additional DIY projects,
and we are considerably slower than the professionals,
(and we're also having to do all sorts of learning
which makes things take even longer)

Some friends tell us not to move in until it's completely finished,
but I think you'll agree
(and I didn't even tell you the bad stuff!)
that our new house, unfinished,
will be so much more comfortable than the digs we've got.

We'll just keep doing the next thing,
until it's livable.
Then we'll move in,
and we'll keep doing the next thing,
and one day,
it'll be all done.

I would never have purposely chosen to live in this house this long,
but having done so,
I can tell you that we will appreciate our new home
sooo much more,
than if we hadn't
and we truly view it
as God's
not
  ours.