I was in the bank one day when I spotted a flyer on their bulletin board. There, tacked up on the wall, was a picture of a modest 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath, 1 car garage home with a large yard and white picket fence. I didn’t even know if we could even afford the house or what the payment might be, but by the time the HH had come home from work, the campaign for that little house had begun.
We hadn’t even really talked about buying a house, let alone look for one. But here was this flyer in my hand, with a cute little *new* home for sale… and well, the next day we did a drive by.
It’s funny, in our past 25 years together we’ve lived in 10 different places {9 really, as one of them was a sort of vacation home} and looking back {and with more experience under our belts} I can see things now that I couldn’t see then. Some of the homes we’ve bought over the years were a really good decision at the particular stage of life, and others, well, they weren’t kidding when they said hindsight is 20/20, that’s for sure. 😉
{My parents with Monkey Boy}
When the HH and I got married, my parents told us that when it came time for us to buy our first house, they’d help us with the down payment. Which was a very generous thing to do {and something we plan to do for our kids as well}. This was of course before {most of us had} computers and since my parents were living out of state at the time, when I told them we had found a house and wanted to buy it, they assumed we had enough common sense not to buy the *best* house in the neighborhood and one that wasn’t across the street from drug dealers.
But ya know, we were young and all we saw was shiny and new and HEY, wall to wall carpet, fresh paint, real wood cabinets and a GARAGE. The fact that the home was built by an Irish builder and so his wife had selected green carpet, green counter tops and vinyl with green accents for the kitchen was besides the point. The house was NEW. And Pretty. And Clean. And we saw what we wanted to see.
{Mom making jam in our kitchen}
I think we lived there about 18 months. The HH’s job was transferred to a different location and the commute was really a pain for him so we didn’t end up living there as long as we had planned to.
During that 18 month period though, we planted a big garden, finished the back fence {so the neighborhood dogs would stop roaming through our yard} and settled into family life.
To the left of us lived a man I named naked Frank. There was a window at the top of our stairs that looked out on to his property and into his living room. I swear, every time I walked by that window, there he was, naked. Nothing says hey, come buy this house when it’s time to resell, like a pervy old man sitting naked in his chair watching the telly and smoking his ciggies.
Also, that house in the picture behind The Girl and the HH? In the entire time we lived at that property we never once saw the people who lived there. The car would come and go, but we seriously had no clue about the neighbor/s. And we were outside A LOT.
Our first home was everything it was supposed to be. Filled with adventure and love. And although if I could go back in time I probably wouldn’t buy it again, it really was the prefect house for our little family at the time.
Love, it grows wherever you plant seeds. 😉
~Mavis
More stories in this series:
- The First Apartment
- The First Mobile Home
- The First House
- The First Home in a Suburban Development
- The House with the Hardwood Floors
- The First House We Built
- The House Where This All Started
- The HOA House
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