Fifteen years ago, we were a young, childless couple, on a tight budget, looking for our first house. We found a cute starter home in Madison. It wasn't the best area of town and the schools weren't great, but having no kids yet, that wasn't really a concern for us. About a year later, I gave birth to our first child. Imagine my surprise when Tim came home just a few weeks later to say that he had driven past a very cool house (only a mile away from our first home) that was for sale. It was old, but charming, and he thought it would be fun to remodel. To say I was apprehensive is a bit of an understatement; then I saw the place. My first impression of the concrete block house on 4 acres of land with 6 outbuildings was that it looked like the lair of a serial killer. However, the rock walls and huge trees all over the property gave it a bit of charm. The house would need quite a bit of work to make it livable, but we had an infant to take care of! I couldn't believe Tim was really serious. He finally convinced me to take the plunge by saying that he thought we could make it livable in 2 months (Tim, of course, does not remember telling me this). We closed on the property when Pierce was 3 months old in July of 1998. Our friends and family thought we were crazy.
Several months later, we were STILL working on the house. We'd knocked out walls, built new ones, replastered, and completely replaced the electrical. I honestly can't remember what the date was, but in early 1999, we figured it was safe to put our first house on the market. Of course, it sold quicker than we were expecting. Suddenly, we had to move into a house that didn't have floors or a kitchen. Tim scrambled to get things finished. A few days before moving, I took Pierce to South Carolina to stay with my parents for a week. He was almost a year old. I didn't want to, but the house still didn't have a kitchen, and I didn't want to live in those conditions with a baby. I came back to help Tim finish and get us moved. I have a picture of all of our living room furniture sitting outside for 2 days, because we still had no carpet in that room! The first night Tim and I spent in the house, a pipe in our only working bathroom burst. After the move, I went back to South Carolina and stayed with my parents for another week until the house was ready. When I came home, I was an emotional wreck. I'd had to spend several days away from my baby and then several more days without Tim; I'd left behind a nursery that I'd spent so much time decorating and that had sentimental value to me; I'd just moved out of a perfectly good house where everything was finished and working. I was crying and raging about all of this one night in our somewhat functional kitchen when Tim said something to the effect of "I just want you to be happy". That's when I yelled the words that still haunt me: "I WILL NEVER BE HAPPY HERE!!"
Well, we continued working on the house here and there; a new roof, new windows. When I got pregnant with Reagan, I insisted that the time had come for our master bathroom to be finished. When Reagan was a toddler, we hired a contractor to finish out the concrete block bonus room and to remodel the exterior. Tim's mother would come visit from time to time and help us with unfinished projects around the house. I think it made her a bit crazy to see so many things undone. As the years went by and we began to make memories in this old house, it began to grow on me more and more. People would joke with us about how far we would drive to church and how our little hilltop was becoming more exposed. I-65 had been widened and we could see it from our living room window. Also, the land across the street was cleared 2 weeks after we closed on the house. A new hospital opened 3 years later. The Emergency Room entrance was actually directly across from our driveway. This increased traffic on our narrow, windy street, bringing crazy drivers that nearly ran me off the road more than once. Our friends said that maybe the time had come to move on to greener pastures. My statement was always the same: "We'll never get rid of this place. I'll be buried in the back yard." I began to garden, and I had dreams of getting every inch of our 4 acres beautifully landscaped. We did another big remodel last summer. We knocked out walls, built a closet and pantry, and installed bamboo flooring. There are still many projects to be completed, but we've made this place into a home that I now love. I could never imagine leaving...
That is, until Tim's dad called a few months ago to talk to him about his house. His dad had a house in Brentwood that had been rented for the last 2 years. We'd toyed with the idea of buying this house a few years ago since we had become members at the Otter Creek Church in Brentwood. In the end, we decided that we couldn't possibly leave our house. But, a few recent events had made us reevaluate. Both of our kids entered the youth group over the summer. It seemed like we were constantly driving them to and from Brentwood for some youth event. I was already doing an excessive amount of driving to Brentwood for chorus rehearsals and meetings. Then, Pierce had a not-so-good year at school. We were dealing with a difficult new principal and Pierce's one-on-one assistant was fired at the end of the year. When Tim's dad called to say that he was putting his house on the market, I told Tim that I was interested in talking about it.
So here I am, packing up the house that we've lived in for 13 years. I feel an indescribable peace about the move. I'm excited to be so close to most of our activities. Reagan is excited to be going to school with one of her very close friends from church. Pierce is excited to have a pool. Though we had a rocky start to the school year (Pierce was accidentally placed on a bus at the end of the first day, so when I came to pick him up, no one could find him. Ah, just another story for my book.), every other interaction I've had with the school reinforces my belief that we've made the right choice. But among all of the joy, there are pangs of sorrow. I'll never get to see what this place could've been. Our to-do list will never be completed. Actually, many of those projects we've put off will be tackled, but only to appeal to renters or buyers. One of the first things I said to Tim after making this decision was, "Oh great. I'll finally get this house looking just the way I want it, only to give it to someone else!"
I decided one day to make a list of all of the things I would miss about this house, and all of the things I would NOT. I just wanted to see which list would be longer. Interestingly, my "miss" list is longer than my "not" list, nearly 2 to 1. I couldn't have predicted that 13 years ago. This list is not complete; I keep thinking of more to add, and I'm sure I'll have a few more after the move. But this is a long post, and it needs to end sometime. Thank you for joining me on my walk down memory lane!
Things I WILL miss:
1. My custom shower/bathroom
2. The seclusion
3. All the work we've done
4. Charm of this place
5. Potential of how fantastic we could make this landscape look
6. All of our rock walls
7. The scripture engraved in tile behind the stove (Ecclesiastes 3:13- "That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God")
8. Chef's Market Cafe (They have the BEST carrot cake I think I've ever tasted!)
9. View from our hill at night
10. Being so close to Opry Mills
11. Being close to Metro Center, and my favorite Greek place
12. Reagan's friends, Kaylee and Kaylin
13. My big white crepe myrtles
14. My tankless water heater
15. The round bathroom (converted from a water cistern that was part of the house)
16. Mowing around the grave of our very first family pet; our sweet puppy dog Annabelle
17. Our VERY secluded hot tub
18. The wild turkeys that show up in our yard every spring
19. Being close to Olive Garden
20. Time alone in the car singing my favorite music
21. Driving past the cute little garden on Due West Avenue
22. My favorite garden center, Bates Nursery, that's just down the road.
23. Our cranky but sweet next-door-neighbor (She's the daughter of the man that built this house)
24. The root cellar in one of our out-buildings that kids refer to as "the cave"
25. Hearing people tell us what a neat place we have
26. Hearing Goodpasture's marching band rehearsing in the distance
27. Being 2 miles away from Old Time Pottery
28. Being 2 miles away from Dairy Queen
Things I will NOT miss:
1. The long drives
2. Hearing ambulances and life flight helicopters all hours of the day and night
3. Terrifying turn into and out of our driveway (Our driveway sits right on a blind curve. Someone hit me as I turned out just a few months after we moved in)
4. The trash that is constantly being thrown onto our street from passing motorists
5. The apartments at the end of our street, whose entrance is constantly strewn with clothes and furniture from a recent eviction
6. The crappiest Walmart I've ever shopped at, right across the street.
7. Feeling so susceptible to another break-in
8. How long it takes takes to mow
9. How much effort it takes to make this yard look decent
10. The over abundance of poison ivy
11. The condemned house and overgrown property next door
12. The invasive honeysuckle bushes
13. Getting nearly run off of our narrow, windy road by crazy drivers and ambulances
14. Hearing delivery guys complain about our steep driveway
15. Having to drive to a park if I wanted to walk (Our street was too dangerous.)
16. Metro schools
