Often, people will email us or visit the blog and then wonder what is this all about anyway? We realized there is not much info (or space) under the 'about me' on the profile, so here is more info.
Hope we don't bore you! :-)
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We started this journey, in our minds at least, about 14 years ago. We lived in the shadow of Downtown Houston, in a historic neighborhood called "The Heights". It's a wonderful neighborhood full of old bungalows and old trees and sidewalks and front porches and a nice, diverse way of life. Sadly, they are also tearing down those wonderful old homes and building "McMansions" on every other block. We decided we didn't want to live in the hustle and bustle of the city all our lives. We were in our 40's and we began to think how nice it would be to look for rural property where perhaps we could eventually build a house, and start living that slower pace of life. Part of this desire was influenced by dear people who are like family to us (on the blog, they are called "2nd Family"). They had lived for years in the country outside of Houston and loved it. Every single time we went out to visit, for birthdays, holidays, or 'just because', we came home vowing that we needed a place like that ourselves, a place to 'escape to', a place that could be our future home.
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We started this journey, in our minds at least, about 14 years ago. We lived in the shadow of Downtown Houston, in a historic neighborhood called "The Heights". It's a wonderful neighborhood full of old bungalows and old trees and sidewalks and front porches and a nice, diverse way of life. Sadly, they are also tearing down those wonderful old homes and building "McMansions" on every other block. We decided we didn't want to live in the hustle and bustle of the city all our lives. We were in our 40's and we began to think how nice it would be to look for rural property where perhaps we could eventually build a house, and start living that slower pace of life. Part of this desire was influenced by dear people who are like family to us (on the blog, they are called "2nd Family"). They had lived for years in the country outside of Houston and loved it. Every single time we went out to visit, for birthdays, holidays, or 'just because', we came home vowing that we needed a place like that ourselves, a place to 'escape to', a place that could be our future home.
So we started keeping articles from magazines for things we liked, ways to decorate, plants to grow, things to do, saving it for the time when we got our own land. I'd print stuff from the Internet, save decorating ideas, cut pictures from catalogs, and articles from papers. But sadly, it never made it any further than the hoping/planning/dreaming stage. Someday...
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Flash forward a few years. A member of 2nd Family that owned the land adjacent to where the other family members live now, asked if we'd be interested in it. He was happy living in Florida and wouldn't be moving back to Texas. He was going to sell and he wanted to know if we wanted it. We said yes! At the time, the plan was just going to be the land only. Land that we could work on until we got ready to build. We started thinking about trees to plant, ponds to build, gardens to create and eventually, a house we could design and build. Things moved slowly for a bit, until "Ma", the matriarch of 2nd Family, decided that she wanted to move to Florida to be closer to her son. She had lived in the house for more than 15 years. She asked us if we'd be interested in buying the little farmhouse and the land around it. We immediately said yes! That would be the perfect chance for us to actually have a place out there already, a place to stay, a place to call our own, a place with the land attached. If someday we wanted to build, no big deal, we'd have a cute little guest cottage on the property and build at the other end.
But until then, we could have a house of our own!
But until then, we could have a house of our own!
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| Thanksgiving 2010 |
So in October of 2010, on a handshake and a promise, we agreed to buy her little house and the land around it. Thanksgiving that year was the last one with her and the rest of her family gathered together in one place, in that house, and after that wonderful dinner, as we helped the rest of the family pack up so she could move to Florida, it began to sink in that it would soon be all ours.
Things finally started happening in 2011. Trying to buy a house right in the middle of the country's economic woes was a most daunting prospect, but hey, you have to try, right? Nothing ventured, nothing gained? After termite inspections and house inspections and the survey from hell (FYI, dividing up rural acreage for title purposes is a pain in the butt!), then reinspections, and well water agreements and shared driveway agreements and more reinspections and then insurance, we closed. It was finally ours.
Good things do come to those who wait.
Things finally started happening in 2011. Trying to buy a house right in the middle of the country's economic woes was a most daunting prospect, but hey, you have to try, right? Nothing ventured, nothing gained? After termite inspections and house inspections and the survey from hell (FYI, dividing up rural acreage for title purposes is a pain in the butt!), then reinspections, and well water agreements and shared driveway agreements and more reinspections and then insurance, we closed. It was finally ours.
Good things do come to those who wait.
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| The house as it more or less looks so far |
That's also about the time this blog was born as it is in its current state. I had actually started it in the prior September, but with not much happening on the house front, not much was happening on the blog front either. That all changed once we closed. I decided then to keep track of, and share, as much as I could of our journey, and the posts have been increasing ever since.
Along this journey, we also discovered a different side of ourselves:
We learned we want the more simple life...
Along this journey, we also discovered a different side of ourselves:
We learned we want the more simple life...
We don't want to be wasteful or do harm to the environment...
We don't need to have a giant house with so much stuff we lose track of it all...
We want to live on less but more rewarding...
We want to grow our own food...
We want to be more self sufficient...
We want to be more creative...
We want a place to escape to that will relieve the stress of our, currently anyway, daily lives, or maybe even an escape/refuge during a major hurricane and/or the ensuing disaster (re: Hurricanes)...
Best of all, we get to start it all from the beginning on this farmhouse. We don't need to have a new house. This little one is a perfectly sized blank slate, and we get to set it up exactly the way we want it from the beginning. And the land? Well the land is the truest blank slate of all...we get to plant and grow and do whatever we want on it, also from the beginning.
So that's what this blog was, is, and will continue to be...an amalgamation of everything...we want to share all of that with you, as you watch us, hopefully, build a small, eco-friendly, organic, mostly self-sufficient, great American farm...pretty much from scratch.
It won't be perfect, there will be (and have been) bumps along the road. We get impatient at times and want it to happen faster, we plant things that do great and other things that fizzle and die...but we always remind ourselves that good things come to those who wait.
Thank you for following along with us!
The journey is always going on...
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