Thursday, April 22, 2010

How I met my house



I just HAD to join the party.....




Add Image

Welcome Home



As a child, we moved around quite a bit.

I spent my pre-teen years in New England and those years had a profound effect on me - in positive and negative ways.

While they were tumultuous years emotionally, that time in my life is when I recognized my love for New England, houses and land.

Some of my favorite memories come from our last house in Connecticut. I loved that house, I loved our neighbors and I loved living there. I was heartbroken when we moved south.



Trees along the driveway in the spring - they're gorgeous...



Flash forward 20 years. Brian and I had been in our starter home for 5 years longer than we had anticipated, and now we had two children, two dogs and the walls were closing in.

It was a lovely little home and we were sad to think of leaving it, but we knew it was inevitable.







One day, while visiting dear friends, I realized while sitting in their kitchen, that there was a familiarity, a comfort almost, in the house. It felt like home.






The Breakfast Room



Only problem was, it wasn't my house, and it certainly wasn't for sale.

The house was next door to my mom, so I visited often. A few years went by and one day I mentioned to mom's neighbors how I felt about the house. I don't know why. I just wanted them to know how a profound feeling would come over me when I walked through the door. Again - such comfort...





Back Yard



They mentioned that they would be moving in a year or two and would we like to buy it?


Um, yes please????

That would give me time to save some money and sell my house. Perfect!


Well, the market crashed, things got complicated, and things didn't go as smoothly as I had planned (do they ever?).





Dining Room


But, it all worked out and we now live in that wonderful home.

A few weeks after we moved in, I was walking through the house, thinking of all the wonderful plans I had for it.

In my mind though, I was seeing other rooms.....

That's when it hit me.

I realized at that moment why this house had such a profound effect on me and I laughed at myself for not recognizing it sooner.




It's almost identical to the house from my childhood in Connecticut.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a touching story. You do have a beautiful home. You are very blessed to have got to buy a house you felt so dearly and deeply about. Thank you for posting your story.

Andrea Frazer said...

I think it's a beautiful house. I can tell how much you love it from your posts on decorating and re-doing. It has a truly rooted/legendary feeling to it. Very familial and warm. The kind of home where memories are made.