3301 Windgate Drive
I like to joke that Tim and I had the most expensive premarital counseling. It was called, "Renovating While Engaged" which cost us a pretty penny! We were four months into our engagement when we started house hunting. The market was on fire and everything that was even remotely in our price range was off the market within 24 hours. It was mid June, Tim's busiest time of year for travel, when my mom found a split level under our budget. She text me while I was at work and simply asked, "split level, two minutes down the road?" Immediately my guard went up. How dare my mother even suggest we live two minutes away from her. I was trying to get out of my parents house for years! I blew her off until she called me on my way home from work. Details about location and large yard and flat driveway flew from my mom's mouth as I tried to keep up with her recent find. "That's the neighborhood with the ugly blue house at the front right?" I said with disgust. "Just meet me there before you get home, Anna is going to show it to us." Frustrated, I hung up the phone and tried to call Tim. He was out of town and couldn't talk at the moment. I sighed and appeased mom by meeting her at the Windgate Drive house.
The house was hideous. Siding was a faded blue, shutters were washed out red and the front porch was hard to see with the overgrown grass. What in the world was mom thinking. This place was a dump. I pulled into the driveway to find my mother talking to the neighbor next door with the cutest golden retriever. "At least the neighbors are friendly," I thought as I walked up to the conversation. Steve was a nice gentleman who had lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years. He gave us the backstory of the house and mentioned the siding was a failed product that would have to be replaced. Anna, our realtor, arrived shortly after and showed us into the vacant house. I was hit with smell of wet dog and stale air. The owners hadn't lived in the house in 6 months and you could tell. Carpeted stairs lead you to a floating wall with a cut out into the kitchen. To the left was the living and dining area and to the right, a hallway to the bedrooms. My mom's wheels were turning with each new room we entered. All I could see was boisterous burgundy and obnoxious yellow and poo brown in the master bath. Mom gently encouraged me to see past the ugly and take in the space. I could see that the master bedroom as a decent size. The two smaller bedrooms had decent closets and the unfinished basement was huge. "Lot's of potential!" my mom exclaimed.
I called Tim that night and told him about the house we looked at "It needs a ton of work, but there is potential," I tried my best to express the ins and outs of the house. With prayers and blind faith, Tim and I agreed that this was the house we would start our life as newlyweds. The offer was made and we got the house. On July 8, 2016 the house was ours.
The work began with us tearing out kitchen cabinets and knocking down the floating wall. The space felt bigger immediately. Hard work, manual labor, sweat and tears were the foundation of our renovation. The goal was to finish the kitchen, floors, paint and scrape the ceilings before I moved in. October of 2016, I finally had my own place to call home. We learned a lot the 9 months we were engaged. Here are a few of the premarital points we remember most:
- If you like farmhouse design and he likes modern, come to a compromise of farmhouse
- There's no better way to get to know your future in laws than working in a broken air conditioned house for four months
- Communication is key. Especially when deciding where the money is going to be spent
- "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" Romans 12:12
