Yea!!! Daniel and I sold the house we owned in Mason, Tx.
For those of you who don't know the story of our house, let me tell you. The January before we were married (2003) Daniel bought a bank-repossesed house in Mason, his hometown. It was an "investment." He grew up doing remodeling with his parents on houses they lived in, so this wasn't a new thing for him. Because he and his parents were so excited about it, I said, "why not?"
During my last semester of school when Daniel was working at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store and we were going through the Marriage Preparation program, we started work on "our" house. Daniel went to Mason on many weekends; my Spring break was spent in Mason; family and friends got involved; the 2 bedroom, one bath, 2 car garage ranch-style house in seriously run down condition slowly transformed. It was actually a 3 bedroom house when we started, but after knocking a few walls down, one gave way to a large open L-shaped kitchen, dining, and living room. A wall was moved to make a larger bathroom; yucky old flooring was taken up; old glue had to be scraped off the floor and one seam ground down to make a nice concrete slab for the ceramic tile we laid (definitely our greatest achievement, the one we're most proud of, and a wonderful way to spend the weeks after your wedding. :) )
The house was obviously not finished before our wedding in June. We couldn't even move into it because Daniel still had to replace the plumbing and electrical. We actually only lived in our house for 2 months. When we left for Honduras in October, the house was basically finished. It lacked some trim work, paint details, paneling in the garage, etc., but we had renters right away. After renting it for a year, we came back on a "home visit" and worked on the house some more. Then another renter moved in.
Last December we were in Texas for the whole month awaiting the birth of Emmanuel soon followed by my brother's wedding. The day I went into labor with Emmanuel in Fredericksburg (my hometown), Daniel was in Mason putting a new metal roof on the house with his brother. Mason and Fredericksburg are only 40 minutes apart, so he easily made it with time to spare before I was really ready to go to the hospital.
Daniel's parents have graciously taken care of all the renting, insurance, taxes, and selling stuff for us. Yesterday they emailed to tell us that we "no longer own real estate in Mason." While definitely a relief to have it done and finished with as we never really considered living in the house when we move back to the States and as it was always our "investment," there's a sentimental part of me that lets me reminisce about it and how it was also an "investment" in our marriage because we spent 4 months straight working side-by-side on it.
I remember Daniel teaching me how to pray the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" in Spanish while laying tile. I remember being Daniel's electrical assistant as I ran through the house trying to find which light or plug was going on as he labeled the breaker box. We learned patience with each other and ourselves as some things (well, many things for me) were our first experience doing them, like laying tile (did I mention that we laid a lot of tile, that we spent a lot of time on our knees bent over placing the tile just right in the right amount of thinset, cutting tile to fit just right, that it was something we never did before, that we're really proud of ourselves, that the house we just sold has a really beautiful tile floor? Did I mention that? :) ).
We had lots of great conversations, listened to some great tapes including the biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel and to radio shows like Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion, and we just worked in silence together (the real kind of silence you hear in a town of 2000 people a mile from the town square).
We are very grateful to God for all that came to us through that house, from a great start to our married life to the money now in our bank account.
For those of you who don't know the story of our house, let me tell you. The January before we were married (2003) Daniel bought a bank-repossesed house in Mason, his hometown. It was an "investment." He grew up doing remodeling with his parents on houses they lived in, so this wasn't a new thing for him. Because he and his parents were so excited about it, I said, "why not?"
During my last semester of school when Daniel was working at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store and we were going through the Marriage Preparation program, we started work on "our" house. Daniel went to Mason on many weekends; my Spring break was spent in Mason; family and friends got involved; the 2 bedroom, one bath, 2 car garage ranch-style house in seriously run down condition slowly transformed. It was actually a 3 bedroom house when we started, but after knocking a few walls down, one gave way to a large open L-shaped kitchen, dining, and living room. A wall was moved to make a larger bathroom; yucky old flooring was taken up; old glue had to be scraped off the floor and one seam ground down to make a nice concrete slab for the ceramic tile we laid (definitely our greatest achievement, the one we're most proud of, and a wonderful way to spend the weeks after your wedding. :) )
The house was obviously not finished before our wedding in June. We couldn't even move into it because Daniel still had to replace the plumbing and electrical. We actually only lived in our house for 2 months. When we left for Honduras in October, the house was basically finished. It lacked some trim work, paint details, paneling in the garage, etc., but we had renters right away. After renting it for a year, we came back on a "home visit" and worked on the house some more. Then another renter moved in.
Last December we were in Texas for the whole month awaiting the birth of Emmanuel soon followed by my brother's wedding. The day I went into labor with Emmanuel in Fredericksburg (my hometown), Daniel was in Mason putting a new metal roof on the house with his brother. Mason and Fredericksburg are only 40 minutes apart, so he easily made it with time to spare before I was really ready to go to the hospital.
Daniel's parents have graciously taken care of all the renting, insurance, taxes, and selling stuff for us. Yesterday they emailed to tell us that we "no longer own real estate in Mason." While definitely a relief to have it done and finished with as we never really considered living in the house when we move back to the States and as it was always our "investment," there's a sentimental part of me that lets me reminisce about it and how it was also an "investment" in our marriage because we spent 4 months straight working side-by-side on it.
I remember Daniel teaching me how to pray the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" in Spanish while laying tile. I remember being Daniel's electrical assistant as I ran through the house trying to find which light or plug was going on as he labeled the breaker box. We learned patience with each other and ourselves as some things (well, many things for me) were our first experience doing them, like laying tile (did I mention that we laid a lot of tile, that we spent a lot of time on our knees bent over placing the tile just right in the right amount of thinset, cutting tile to fit just right, that it was something we never did before, that we're really proud of ourselves, that the house we just sold has a really beautiful tile floor? Did I mention that? :) ).
We had lots of great conversations, listened to some great tapes including the biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel and to radio shows like Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion, and we just worked in silence together (the real kind of silence you hear in a town of 2000 people a mile from the town square).
We are very grateful to God for all that came to us through that house, from a great start to our married life to the money now in our bank account.
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