The Story of Our Home.

Our story starts in Laguna Beach, California. Well…actually it starts a little before that…

Taylor and I moved to Laguna Beach, CA from Virginia the weekend after I graduated from college. We were 20 and 21 when we got married, so I had to finish school first, and after that we had no real plans. I remember going out for Mexican one night and talking about future plans, and whether we should live close to my family in Richmond, VA or Taylor’s family in Baltimore, MD. Neither seemed quite right, and then Taylor threw out the idea of moving to Southern California. It was a place we had always both loved and kind of fantasized in our minds, both individually and together. We honestly decided to just go for it on a whim. We just decided we were going to do it and we did. We didn’t have jobs, a car, a place to live, anything really- but we were young and fearless and bought one way plane tickets and moved. We gave away our dog, packed two bags each and headed west- leaving our families and every single person we knew behind.

So that’s how we got there. After renting a place in Laguna Beach we fell fast and hard in love with it there. We both got decent jobs and honestly just felt like our one bedroom apartment on the beach was a castle. We watched the sunset every night and we dipped our toes in the Pacific every single day. It was heaven.

Fast forward about 2 years.

We were still loving our life in Laguna. We both had jobs that we loved, at this point. We had a good church and great friends. And we were doing well enough to be able to really enjoy ourselves. Everything seemed perfect. But, we began to have conversations about what we wanted the next couple years to hold. We both wanted kids and wanted the flexibility financially for me to stay home if we did decide to start a family. We were getting along just fine with both of us working full-time and renting a small one bedroom, but quickly realized that we’d have a hard time living on one income and maintaining our lifestyle living right on the beach.

So we began looking at other options. We looked at places a little inland from where we were currently living that were cheaper, we talked about other job options and how much we could scale back our budget, and we looked at houses back home too. We both loved Laguna so much, but we also knew that if we wanted kids in the next couple years we may want to be closer to our families.

We planned on just continuing to survey our options and trusted that when the right opportunity arrived, we’d know.

Well, it happened.

While browsing Zillow, Taylor noticed a little white 890 sq foot farmhouse on 10 acres back home where I grew up and my parents lived. What’s even sweeter was that since moving out west, Taylor’s family had also moved from Baltimore to Richmond, and were living just FIVE minutes from my family. So the gang was all there.

I recognized the house immediately. It’s about a mile from where I grew up, and a widow used to live there- she was always sitting on her front porch, and every summer she planted a huge field of sunflowers, making the house look just magical. As a girl, I used to occasionally ride my horse up to her house and ride in the field. A couple times, she even let me pick a few of her sunflowers. I had an instant connection with the home, and basically just said to Taylor, “This is it.”

Some how Taylor was instantly on board. We both just had this crazy, God-given, peace about the whole thing. We hadn’t saved money for a down payment, and had no idea how it would all work out, but we knew we had to try and buy this house.

We began getting everything together. We called the realtor, who happened to be an old friend that I went to youth group with growing up (crazy right?), managed to pull together what little money we had saved to put 3% down, and were able to write an offer up. We made an offer on the house, without ever seeing it or going inside the house. Remember at this point we’re still living in California, and we placed an offer on a home in Virginia….everyone thought we were nuts. Our families were elated that we were looking at moving back, but even they thought the whole situation was crazy.

Well, we got news that there were other strong offers on the house. People who had more to put down than we did, and who were local. So, I decided to write the owner of the home a letter. I told him about our story, and how I used to knew his Grandma- who lived there and planted all those sunflowers- when I was growing up. I told him that we were living in California, but hoping to start a family some day and wanted to be closer to family. I just laid it all out there.

With in a day of sending the letter, the realtor reached out to me and said, “The owner wants you all to be ones who get the house.” We were STUNNED. Everything was falling into place, and despite the crazy unconventional way we were going about it, we were buying a house on the opposite coast that we had never stepped foot in before, and only I had seen in person.

It was a miracle, but everything ended up going through. We had a traveling notary come to our apartment and help us sign all the paperwork, and within a matter of a few weeks we were home owners! It was crazy, y’all.

We made plans to move back after the summer was over (cause I mean really, who wants to leave Laguna Beach in prime surf season?). Thinking about leaving was so difficult, but we were also so excited about starting a new adventure together back in Virginia. We popped champagne, and dreamed about what our new life would look like in the country.

Fast forward a couple week after closing on the house, annnnnnnd we find out I’m pregnant! I mean, talk about God’s perfect timing. We were definitely surprised, but everything made so much more sense after realizing we were going to have a BABY much sooner than we had anticipated. Buying this house site-unseen, and moving home, still felt a little crazy a few weeks before, but now it seemed like the most reasonable option possible! We’d be close to family, cutting our rent/mortgage in half of what we were paying in Laguna, and I could stay home with our baby!

Well, our last summer in California FLEW by. And before we knew we were packed up, had an empty apartment, and were turning in our keys. It was SO bittersweet. I was about 10 weeks pregnant at this point, and we had a cross country trip ahead of us to get home. We took about 12 days to get home, and really enjoyed getting to stop at multiple National Parks all along the way back. It was a great “last hurrah” if you will in wrapping up our 2.5 year adventure out west. I could write a whole post about our trip home, but I won’t go into it now. It was awesome though.

We finally made it back home.

It was the weirdest feeling, driving up to a house, that we owned, but had never been inside of before. It all felt a little surreal.

And, to be honest, when we walked it for the first time, it was a bit of a let down haha. Let’s just say the pictures in the photos online made it look nicer than it was. But at this point, we were IN it and there was no backing down. The living room wasn’t too bad, but the kitchen was ROUGH. I mean like lead paint, nasty vinyl flooring from the 70’s and dirty kitchen drawers rough haha. It was pretty clear from the moment we walked in, that some major reno was going to have to happen before we brought a baby home to this house.

The bathroom was the other “scary space” haha. Same horrible vinyl from the 70’s, everything was a yellowish color wood, and just pretty dirty in general….oh booooy.

The house itself is only 890 sq feet with two small bedrooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom. So basically at this point we wanted to rip out half of the house.

Well, before we could even really move anything in, the demo began. Taylor went all Chip Gaines on me the next day and took a sledge hammer to one of the kitchen walls (which we later learned was load bearing) and the kitchen cabinets. The floor was being ripped up. The small kitchen pantry was ripped out. It was happening. And with no real plan. Basically we were tearing apart the house that we had been so excited about getting to and seeing. I have hardly any before pictures, because literately within 24 hours of getting to the house, stuff was getting torn apart.

The more I write, the more I realized this is probably a post that should be broken down in the MULTIPLE posts, ha. The kitchen renovation alone is QUITE the story with lots of little stories wrapped up into it.

But I do want to say this- home projects are always less glamorous than the internet makes them out to be. Our renovations cost us more money, more time, and more work than we ever expected. It’s not how it looks on Fixer Upper. We love our home now, but it’s not perfect and we made mistakes along the way. We have debt as a result of the renovations we made that we’re still paying off. And some things we just did completely wrong. BUT I’m so thankful for our little Sunflower House.

I think God knew that we needed this place, because if we would have seen it in person before, we probably never would have bought it. In hindsight, I’m so glad we did but it’s been a crazy road getting here.

It’s not perfect but it has come SO far. And I appreciate it so much now, because of all the work we’ve put into it.

That’s all I’m going to share for now, but our story is so much bigger than this and continues to unfold and I’m excited to keep you all updated. Sometimes I look back at our story and think about how crazy we were, and am just so reminded of God’s faithfulness through it all. It’s also good for me to look at that fearless girl and know that I still AM that girl. Even on the days when I don’t feel capable, I remind myself that I am, and that I CAN do hard things. Because I’ve done them before. And that’s always a good reminder.

This is what the house looked like when we moved in.

Here’s the front now. Adding shutters and window boxes, painted the door, re did the beams on the porch and stenciled the floor!

It looks so much better now!

This was the kitchen when we moved in.

Same view, now.

We did all the subway tile ourselves! It was actually pretty easy!