Looking for Home

An Abecedarian Essay

Affordable

Home buying started with a wishlist. When we began house shopping in 2013, my husband and I wrote down a list of features we either hoped for or considered non-negotiable. We let ourselves dream and then we brought those dreams down to what we thought was reasonable and attainable. After a dozen disappointing home tours, we were splashed in the face with ice-cold reality. What we hoped for was outside our budget. What was non-negotiable was in fact, very negotiable. The bar needed to be lowered significantly. There would be no basement, no open floor plan, no renovated kitchen. Our wishlist whittled down to one thing: affordable.

Big Backyard

As soon as I walked through the back door and laid eyes on the towering maple in the middle of a near acre field, I knew. The forest backdrop and trickling creek felt like our own private Neverland on the edge of suburban sprawl. The 1950’s ranch house had just enough room, and more importantly, the proverbial good bones. Also, the price was right, which is to say, it was ugly and outdated. I didn’t know how we could afford to fix it, but I knew I wanted it to be mine. The big back yard covered a multitude of disappointments.

Consider the Lilies

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? … Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:28-34

Debt (Dave Ramsey isn’t Jesus)

My husband and I were fresh eyed eighteen-year-olds when we signed away $150,000 collectively to earn our bachelors degrees. Our diplomas have hung on various walls of our home, the nail holes left behind like scars. They collect dust in a closet now. Neither of us use our degrees.

We consolidated and re-financed our loans multiple times, and now find ourselves at the end of the 17 year pay-back tunnel. After the final payment, we will have turned over an estimated $240,000 to the banks who loaned us money. A whole house worth. There is no one to blame for the burden of the loans but ourselves, though it’s tempting to point fingers at the abysmal counsel we received. At the end of the day, we signed on the dotted line.

Dave Ramsey, the well-known financial evangelist, wasn’t introduced to us back then. Could he have saved us from our sins?

The large monthly payment that comes out of our bank account is almost double that of our mortgage. Our degrees directly impacted the home we could afford for the entirety of our marriage. Soon, we will have a choice to look out further than our current means. The proverbial upgrade within our grasp. But we have done some math. Trading student loan debt for more mortgage debt doesn’t sound like freedom.

Ellen Degeneres

A few months after purchasing our home, I prayed about how hard it was to watch Michael bear the burden of providing for our small family on his own. There were things I wanted to buy to make the house functional and beautiful. Things as simple as a dish drying rack and a few throw pillows. I was a stay at home mom with no way to earn an income. No way to ease my husband’s burden or make my dreams become a reality. My cries were out of need, genuine longing, and bitter discontent. I laid them before the Lord, begging for his will to be done—hoping His will and mine were the same.

I opened my computer and logged into Facebook to see an advertisement for the Ellen Degeneres Show’s 12 Days of Giveaway’s contest. I submitted my information and closed the laptop. A few hours later, I received a call from California with unexpected news. A thousand dollar Target gift card bearing Ellen Degeneres’ image was delivered by FedEx a few days later.

All that remains of those purchases from 12 years ago is a throw blanket I still use on our deck. That, and the deeply held belief that my heart, mixed motives and all, is safe in God’s hands.

Frida Kahlo Had A Uni-Brow

“What’s a uni-brow?” My youngest son, Lewis, asks from his after-school perch on the couch across from me.

“You know the famous artist Frida Kahlo?” I say, knowing he read about her recently. “It’s where eyebrows connect in the middle. Frida Kahlo had one.”

“Huh…makes sense.”

We make sense of the world together in the living room and at the dining room table, the two places we are constantly together. Close proximity is a given in this one story home. Because we are always reachable for musings, sparked conversations are close at hand.

We have grown into a strong family unit.

Relational intimacy galvanized by a lack of space.

Generous Grandpa Gifts a Grill

Somehow my grandpa found out that we borrowed our neighbor’s grill to cook chicken teriyaki kebabs. It was our first summer in our home, I was pregnant, and craving my favorite meal.

He and my aunt showed up in our driveway with a brand new CharBroil gas grill standing tall in the back of his truck. “You can’t own a home and not have a grill! That’s just not right,” his deep southern drawl boomed with a mix of concern and amusement.

I rode the high of that unexpected gift all summer. We set it on the small concrete slab outside our back door, the only level space to speak of in our yard.

I can’t remember when the discontent started to creep in. It may have been one of the times I was awkwardly holding a plate of food in my lap, trying to enjoy a freshly grilled meal with a toddler next to me, both of us in soft folding camp chairs in the grass because we didn’t have a deck, or patio, or any yard furniture. It may not have been until the grill grates rusted through a couple years later and we had to scour Facebook Marketplace for a used one. It’s hard to put my finger on the exact time my heart turned from grateful to greedy. I only know how quickly I blinked my eyes. So fast. So frequent. It became difficult to see with all that want clouding my vision.

Home

Merriam Webster Dictionary

Noun:

“One’s place of residence.”

“The social unit formed by a family living together.”

“A familiar or usual setting.”

Adverb:

“To a final, closed, or ultimate position.”

“To a vital sensitive core.”

If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

In order to slowly renovate our home without going into debt, we follow one main rule: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That means, in the first decade of living in our house, none of the renovations were purely for aesthetics. Functionality and maintenance were the priority. We got a new roof, a new furnace, added air conditioning, sealed the crawl space, added lighting, replaced some flooring, added a small room to the back of the garage, etc. We replaced the plumbing as it broke. Repaired appliances until they could no longer be repaired. We painted the walls initially and haven’t since. It shows.

The reality of our stasis has been creeping up in my conscience. The peeling laminate flooring looms large in my mind. Is that considered broken? At what point do we fix it? At what point are we supposed to say enough is enough?

Joneses

No one knows who the Joneses are anymore, we just know they have more than us, are having more fun than us, and look better doing it because the internet told us so. We aren’t just keeping up with our neighbor, we are trying to keep up with everyone and no one. Artificial is the buzz word of the dawning age. How can we possibly keep up with someone who isn’t real?

Kitchen Counter

The first flaw someone pointed out when helping us move into our house was the crack in our 1978 laminate countertop. “Oh, this counter must be replaced as soon as possible. It should be at the top of your renovation list.” I had seen much uglier counter tops. This one was white with mottled ribbons of grey-green. If you squinted, you could imagine it looked like marble.

Crestfallen, for years I would hear this sentiment echo in my mind, the crack taunting me as I chopped vegetables nearby. Every time I calculated how much it would cost for new marble or quartz countertops my eyes bulged. And, if you give a mouse a new counter-top, it’s going to want new cabinets. And if you give a mouse new cabinets, it’s going to want new flooring, too. The numbers were impossible, and so the countertop remained.

Twelve years later, it’s still there.

Thousands of vegetables have been chopped near that crack. The afternoon light enhances all the new dings and divots in the degrading laminate. Proof of its life and usefulness.

The difference is, I no longer hear the sentiment echo in my mind. I wash over the crack as I clean up the mess. I enjoy the cooking smells and the meal shared with my family. I give little thought to the appearance of the countertop. I’ll use it as long as I need.

Lewis Mourns

Tears threatened the corners of Lewis’ eyes as we talked about renovating our kitchen. A casual dinner conversation, a mere brainstorm session sparked by the rapid decline of our 30-year-old stove set him into a panicked spiral.

“But I like this stove. I don’t want a new one.”

“I know, buddy,” I said, “but if it doesn’t work anymore, we have to get a new one. We aren’t re-doing the kitchen, it was just an idea for the future.”

Silence expanded between us until Lewis choked out one last response.

“...I like things the way they are.”

Math Problems

If you want to renovate seven rooms in your home and you save $10,000, how much money can you use on each room?

If the average cost of mid-range quality kitchen cabinets is between $5,000 - $13,000 and you have $1,500, what is the probability you will attempt to renovate your kitchen?

If four people live in a house with one full bathroom and each one showers four times a week, how many times a week can each one shower if the bathroom is gutted and has the shower removed for an unknown number of weeks?

Never Enough (Room)

On days that I’m frustrated with how little floor space there is in the U-shaped path of carpet around our queen-sized bed that my husband wishes were a king, I imagine what it would be like to have a bedroom with a reading nook in the corner. Or a second living space. Or even just a basement where I can have a miniature art studio, a space of my own. It doesn’t even need a full height ceiling. I wouldn’t ask for too much. I google homes in the area that are a little bigger and a little newer than the one we have. I see hardwood floors that are unscratched and level instead of the peeling up laminate underneath my feet. I see window sills that aren’t water damaged and scarred with dents from toy hammers wielded by toddler boys. And then my eyes settle on the large six digit number next to the listing and I think nevermind and quickly exit out of the browser.

Open and Close

How to use an automatic garage door opener when you want to leave the house:

1. Press the button on your car visor and watch the door open.

2. Back the car out of the garage.

3. Press the button again as you drive away and watch it close.

How to use an automatic garage door opener installed 30 years ago on an unbalanced, out-of-square door frame with questionable electrical connections:

1. Press the button on the wall of the garage and wince as the door lifts with a lurch and pray it stays on the track.

2. Back the car out of the garage and put it in park.

3. Get out of the car and walk back into the garage.

4. Hold the button down on the wall and wince as the door begins to descend with a screech.

5. Keep holding the button with even pressure.

6. Accidentally shuffle your finger slightly, watch as the door reverses and starts to open again.

7. Take your finger off the button and press again.

8. Apply even pressure until it finally meets the ground.

9. Walk back to the car through the front door and get in.

10. Drive away.

Pascal’s Dream Home

My son Pascal came home from middle school excited about his math assignment: design your dream home. When I left him to run errands, he was busy at work at his usual homework spot on the couch, so I was surprised when I got a Ring camera notification. I watched him on the screen, hard hat on, unraveling a measuring tape along the side of our house. When I arrived home, he ran up to me, holding up his drawing to show me the progress he had made. I took in the ranch house, almost the exact color and dimensions of our own, and met his gaze and wide grin. “Great job, buddy! But I thought the assignment was to design a dream home—like, anything you could ever want?”

“It was, and I did, mom. Our house is my dream home. If I could live anywhere, it would be here.”

Quit Dreaming

Michael is constantly turning options over in his mind. “What if we added on here or pushed out this room, removed this wall or that one? What if, what if, what if…” I often get annoyed at the rabbit trails of design dreams he makes me follow him down. When he tosses ideas into the air, I bat them away like dandelion fluff in my face. “Quit dreaming,” I say. It’s hard for me to hold dreams in one hand and contentment in the other.

I lock eyes with my dreamer husband and realize that together we can have a firm grip on both.

Renovation fatigue

All of our renovations have taken entire seasons of a year. The spring we conditioned the crawl space. The summer we re-sided the house. The winter we renovated the breezeway. So many layers of white paint. And most recently, the summer we built the deck.

Little by little we’ve tackled the projects. We’ve asked for help, put in our own effort and sweat, and paid for each part as we went. We’ve spent nights and weekends in work mode and placed fun or adventures on hold. We typically take a year break in between each project because of how tiring it is.

We have reached year two since the last house project. Renovation fatigue set in. Do we really want to throw ourselves into another all-consuming season? Shouldn’t we have enough money to pay someone else to do the work by now? It feels like a failure to ask our children to help us renovate another room and forgo any trips this year.

It’s so easy to think untrue thoughts when you’re tired.

Starter Home

“A starter home is the first home someone can typically afford to buy. Starter homes are smaller, lower priced homes that help first time home-buyers get their foot in the door of home ownership.” U.S. News and World Report Real Estate

But what does a starter home become if you stay?

How many years does it take before you can drop the qualifier? Or how much money do you have to put into renovations before it’s no longer considered lower priced?

Our realtor, a generous, kind-hearted man, congratulated us on finding our starter home as we signed documents while holding our wiggly one-year-old. He still sends us Christmas cards, reminding us that he is there, ready to sell our home should we ever decide to level-up. Would he still call it a starter home twelve years later?

Treasure

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

Under the stars

In the summer we have a second living space.

On any given brilliant Michigan day between June and September, you’ll find one or all of us on the deck. We eat at the picnic table, congregate in the Adirondack chairs to read, and take naps on the outdoor couch. At night, we enjoy fires in the Solo Stove, listening to the tree frogs call back and forth to one another through the canopies of trees. And on special nights, we get out the projector and screen.

This past summer, for our last special night, I chose one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride. The sky was clear, the temperature just cool enough to warrant a sweatshirt, and my oldest child was on the precipice of teenage-hood. A recipe for a core memory.

As we settled into the movie—Pascal leaning on Michael, his growing frame taking up most of one half of the L shaped couch, and Lewis with his head resting on my shoulder on the other half—I felt time stand still. They were watching the movie and laughing, and I was watching them laugh. The thought surfaced: I wouldn’t want to be anywhere in the world other than right here on this deck, with these people.

Even though there was a living room inside, a space where we could separate, we were out on the deck together, nestled close under a vast sky of stars.

Vanity of vanities

Our main bathroom vanity isn’t original to the house. It was part of the 20 year update the previous homeowner did in 1978. Our plumbing has been showing its age the last couple of years, and one of the sinks in the double sink vanity started to leak. Michael tore out the wet wood under the cabinet on one side and fixed the sink with his father. You can see the old tile floor now when you open the cabinet doors. The bowls of the sinks are beginning to disintegrate so that even when I bleach them clean, they don’t look like they are. We debate constantly about replacing the vanity, but we need to re-do all of the plumbing first. Do we hire it out or do it ourselves? One costs more time, the other money. And what about the rest of the bathroom, shouldn’t we renovate the entire thing at once? We estimate the cost. The numbers add up to nope-not-yet. Technically everything still works. It’s not completely broken. It’s definitely ugly, but it functions. Back and forth we weigh the cost-benefit. Round and round we go in vain.

Wish list

This fall, we built a fire to burn sticks that fell from the large maple tree in our yard. It’s been shedding thick dead branches lately, a sign of decline. After doing some cleaning in the garage, we added some paperwork to the burn pile, too. As we sifted through the paper, Lewis found the original listing for our home.

“Three bedroom, 1.5 bathroom ranch house built in 1958,” he read aloud. “If I was looking for a house, and I saw this listing, I would have said that’s a good house, and I would have bought it.” He looked up from the paper and continued, “ I’m just saying, this is a good house.’

I update my current wishlist for a home. Whittle it back down to one thing: A house my children love.

And I already have it.

Xylem

Nestled behind the back corner of our house stood a 30 foot tall white spruce tree with viridescent boughs hanging low to the ground, opening up an inner sanctuary under its canopy—a perfect hideout for a child. From the time he could walk, Pascal adopted this canopy as his play sanctuary from the afternoon sun. When I picture Pascal at four years old, I see him beneath this spruce tree, baseball cap on, a halo of construction trucks around him, knees covered in dirt. In his squeaky voice he beckons me, “Come into my forest, mommy!”

By the time he turned 5, the lower branches on the spruce began to die back. I discovered it had a fungal disease that clogs the xylem and phloem, cutting off water and nutrients from the roots and branches one by one. By Pascal’s 10th birthday, the xylem no longer transported water to any part of the tree—it was a total loss. He helped the arborist cut it down by pulling on the rope as he waved a hand signal. He chopped up the logs and stacked the wood by the shed with his father. He didn’t cry that his forest was gone. The water didn’t flow. He was ready to learn how to mow the lawn around the stump where the shade once was. Not afraid to love the same place as it changed.

Yellow

The one cosmetic detail that almost stopped me from purchasing our home was the bright, sunshine-yellow wooden siding. It was called the McDonald’s house by people in the neighborhood because of its yellow siding and maroon garage door. The house was a beacon of embarrassment. You can hide the ugly on the inside well enough, but bright yellow siding can’t be hidden from anyone. We resided it with a muted blue vinyl, a renovation justified only by the discovery of water damage. I noticed this year that lichen is starting to grow on the west side of the house. Some algae on the north. We will have to beat back the decay on what once was new. Constant maintenance. That’s true here, it’s true anywhere. Newness, ever-fading.

Zillow

When I type in our home address on Zillow, the market value shows a 140% increase in value since the time we bought it. The listing shows the same photos it did from back then too. It doesn’t show any of the changes we’ve made or any of the things we’ve kept the same. It doesn’t tell you that we painted the kitchen cabinets a decade ago and that they are now discoloring and wearing off. It doesn’t tell you that the only bedroom we renovated was the boys’ and that Pascal is so tall, he can barely climb into the top bunk, so we are re-thinking the space again. It doesn’t tell you that we dance to music on the worn kitchen floor while loading the dishwasher or toss a ball for our dog across the stained living room carpet every night to burn her last dregs of energy. It doesn’t tell you much of anything, really.

Except that it’s not for sale.

Soli Deo gloria,

Sara