It all started with us spending the 2015-16 school year in Virginia. I loved living in town while we were there. I really am a town sort of person. I love to walk or bike instead of driving places. When we came back I really missed being in town. We thought of several options that we could do to move to town, but none of them seemed quite right or worked out.
In April 2017 I went visiting teaching to Helen House who lives on Mountain View St right up the road from Martha's house. I parked across the street and saw a for sale sign in front of a house I had always thought was pretty from the outside. I had the thought that I should look online when I got home and see more about the house. I thought it probably wasn't big enough for our family and that it would cost too much, but I looked anyway. I was surprised that it was bigger than our Henry Road house and was listed at $295,000. I loved the house so I asked Neil if we could look at it. We came and looked at it and really liked it. Candi, the real estate agent, told us there were several people interested in it and would probably sell that summer. I was disappointed because we weren't ready to put our house on the market yet.
We talked about it and decided to put our house up for sale by owner. First we had to fix a couple of broken windows. Neil also wanted to reshingle the roof. We worked on those projects and posted our house on zillow.com. We didn't get any calls from people interested in our house. We decided to lower the price and list it with an agent in July. We also made an offer on the Mountain View house contingent on us selling our house.
We showed it several times, but nothing too much was happening with selling our house. I had pretty much given up on getting the Mountain View house because in October our offer expired and the house was foreclosed on. It was off the marker for a time.
In January the listing for our Henry Road house was done. The last day it was on the market someone called about wanting to see it. We said ok, but didn't really have much hope for the showing. Long story short...the people liked it and made an offer. We didn't accept it because the Mountain View house still wasn't listed and we didn't want to go just anywhere.
In February the same family, the Stovalls, sold their house in California and wanted to know if we were willing to sell to them now. We still said no. I am sure they were disappointed.
The end of March Candi called me and said that the Mountain View house was on the market again and the bank had reduced the price to $210,900. I said thanks, but I didn't think we would be interested in doing it. I told Neil about it and he said he was interested at that price. We had Dirk Cozzens come and look at it with us to see if the plumbing would take too much work to fix because of the frozen pipes. He told us he didn't think it would be too much to fix it so we made an offer on the house.
Candi said she would call and see if the Stovalls were still looking for a house. When she called they just happened to be in Powell from California to try and find a house. They looked at ours again and made an offer. We countered and they accepted. It was amazing to see how it all worked out in the Lord's time and plan. In two days we offered on the Mountain View house and sold our Henry Road house.
We closed on the Mountain View house on April 25 and the Henry Road house the middle of May. We had to close on the Mountain View house first so the plumbing could be fixed before we moved in. The plumbing was fixed on the 4th of May and we spent that night in our new home. We took several weeks to move everything out and clean the Henry Road house. It was nice to do it ourselves and have the time we needed to get it done.
We weren't able to close as soon as we hoped on the Henry Road house because of banking policies in California, but it still all worked out. When we talked with the Stovalls they told us they just knew our house was the one they were supposed to get. They were disappointed when we didn't sell the first time, but the timing was better in March for them also.
I loved our Henry Road house and all the projects Neil did for me. It was hard to leave, but it felt like the right thing to do. I love the Mountain View house. It has more space in the house, but not as much yard to take care of. I am so grateful that we were able to see the hand of the Lord in our lives as we waited for it to all work out. At times I doubted my ability to listen to the spirit because I was so sure we were supposed to move into this house and it just wasn't working out. I cried over it several times. Neil was patient with me and helped me work through it. I had decided to just be happy where I was in the Henry Road house and then it all worked out. I know the Lord has a plan for us and He knows our desires. I hope to remember the lessons I learned has I waited and hoped for things to work out.
Just yesterday we saw another tender mercy that the sprinkler system was not as damaged as we thought it would be over the winter. It works without Neil having to do much work, that is totally amazing.
I have loved being in town. The location is perfect. Close to Westside Elementary, the Church, a park, and Northwest are all within a couple of blocks.
Here are pictures of the outside of the two houses.
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| 660 Mountain View St |
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| 729 Henry Road |
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