History

Duke has always wanted to have more space.  To be honest, who doesn't?  He wants a garden, a workshop/ tool garage, a big yard to take care of , and room for his dogs to run and play.  So in our last backyard, he attempted to have a garden, put in a storage shed, and sometimes drove a riding mower to cut the grass around the pool.  Even though we had a good size backyard, it didn't seem to be large enough.  We began to look into buying acreage.  So began the search.  Many of the lots we found were either very costly or far away.  Duke just happened on a lot in an established subdivision that was just right up the road.  It was in the same school district so our girls wouldn't have to change schools, was something we could afford, and was a little over four acres!  After a bit of the customary haggling that goes on when people are buying and selling, we began to pay for our new "land."

After a couple of years of payments, Duke started getting antsy.  Anyone who knows my husband is well aware that when he gets something in his head, it's going to happen.  Unfortunately, his mother was soon to be diagnosed with oral cancer.  Grammie started aggressive treatment with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy in the beginning of 2008.  Although her prognosis was initially good, subsequent scans proved otherwise.  We lost our Grammie in March of 2009.  The process to sell Grammie's house and close out her estate took priority. After about six weeks of home repair, the house was on the market, and after one failed contract, the house was sold in January of 2010!



Soon after, we began to make the preparations to put our own home on the market.  Now, to anyone who  puts their home for sale, getting the house ready is well worth the effort.  Mind you, even though you are still living there,  the people looking need to see themselves there.  Extra pieces of furniture went into storage, every family picture was taken away and put in storage,  taste specific wall colors were painted neutral, (except for secondary bedrooms,) windows, tubs and showers were caulked, paint and trim was touched up, carpets cleaned and stretched,  closets weeded out, and we tried to keep it clean, clean, clean!  Totally worth every bit of work!  Too bad it didn't look that nice while we lived there.  Our realtor, Carol, came by, had us sign our paperwork, and put the sign in the lawn.  Now, I sat on my front step, and looked at the sign for a while.  We had lived here over eight years, and to be honest, I was sad to be selling our home, especially since it now looked so nice.  Everybody is aware that the housing market is in a bit of a slump, so we really lucked out when we had a family that wanted to buy our house!  VERY lucky, considering there was hardly any traffic. Again after a little countering, we closed on our house in June. 

Coincidentally, the kids really liked the secondary bedrooms...so glad we didn't paint them!