Six years ago this week we sold our 1929 Spanish bungalow. We had spent 15 years lovingly restoring our little cottage by the sea. In fact, I had just finished a major kitchen remodel during which I finally had installed the Carrera marble countertops of my dreams! (Insert Crying Face)
My husband had been interviewing with a company that he had admired his entire life. They offered him the job of his dreams. Dreams he had had since he was a little boy writing code on his Commodore 64. (Yes, I married a pretty hot nerd) It was the opportunity of a lifetime, so we packed up our things, two kids and three dogs, and hit the road.
We moved to an area where real estate prices are quite high. QUITE. As in very. As in ridiculous. As in are you kidding me. As in SERIOUSLY.
So we scraped together all we could, and only by the grace of God, purchased a 2 bedroom, 1 and a half bath. Calling it a half bath was being EXTREMELY generous. It was more like a RV toilet. You could sit and do your business, and brush your teeth at the same time. Win-win.
But that is a blog for a later date.
We learned a lot from that move. Probably enough for a book. First and foremost we learned we weren’t in control of anything, and that we needed to be trusting God for everything. Tough to put into practice when the rubber is actually meeting the road. I see now how every lesson you learn prepares you for the next phase of life, often when you will get to learn a whole new set of lessons, and you are grateful that you can lean on the wisdom from the earlier ones.
So we squeezed into a two bedroom house. Before the movers came, we painted the entire house. Including ceilings. And Trim. And Doors. We did this over a very warm weekend in June. And yes, it only took a weekend. To paint the whole house. Because IT WAS SO SMALL. I mean SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. THE HOUSE WAS TINY. When the movers did come, we could barely fit the boxes inside! They were stacked to the ceiling except for a small path to walk in between like we were crazy hoarders. There may have been a few tears shed throughout this process.
The girls learned to share a room. We learned that you really don’t need so much stuff, and that living with less is actually freeing. It prepared me for the future Marie Kondo movement, by giving me an enormous head start. Like I was so far ahead all y’all don’t even know. So silver lining!
We learned to make do with less. I learned how to chalk paint a old rusty refrigerator that we couldn’t afford to replace. It ended up being so cute that when we remodeled the kitchen and bought a new refrigerator, my neighbor asked if she could have the chalk-painted one! (It really was cute people)
After a few years of sacrifice we saved up, and were able to afford to add a third bedroom, another bathroom, an office, and a carriage house for the kids to hang out with their friends. I will be blogging about each of those spaces. I was beyond grateful to be gaining the space just as the kids were entering high school. The additions came just in the nick of time.
Now every time I get to use my NON-RV bathroom, I shake my head and think “WOW,” and how I am so grateful for the difficulties, and the blessings, and celebrating life exactly where you are.
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