Becoming Home Owners - A Financial Paradigm Shift (PART THREE)

On Friday, January 17, Burke and I met Donna at a little home in Enoch with pale blue-gray siding and navy shutters.  As soon as we walked in the front door, I could feel all the anxiety and stress over the house-search leaving me.  I knew this was supposed to be our home.

These are the pictures from off the original ERA site, so they're way low quality.

The current owners had done an amazing job.  Apparently when they bought the house on foreclosure 4 years previously, it had been an absolute disaster, but with the husband's father being a contractor, he was excited to take it on as a project.  They stripped the house down to nothing but studs and the sub-floor, re-doing absolutely everything.  Even with 4 kids and 4 years behind them, the house still looked like they had just redone it.  More than the looks however, I was just so overwhelmed by the feeling of peace I felt.  There was such a good spirit in the home and I hardly noticed dimensions, paint colors or counter space because I just kept grinning, knowing that this was going to be our new home.

The yard is what really sold Burke.  The house is on nearly half an acre with 6 full grown fruit trees, a large garden space, a park behind us (with no actual park equipment, so there is hardly ever people there) and a huge farming field behind that.  We love to be outdoors and walking around the big backyard for the first time is when the smile couldn't be wiped off Burke's face as he imagined enjoying that yard as a family and all the future potential!

Soooo excited about this yard!  Interior pictures to come.

It's funny, because this little house fits almost none of the requirements we had listed for things we wanted.  The dinning room and kitchen are tiny, there's no master bathroom and no garage.  However, as I said before, there was no denying this was where we needed to be.  When we drove away, Burke and I looked at each other and said, "Do we really even need to talk about this?"  We called Donna up, who was driving in front of us and asked if we could go straight to her office to write up an offer.  By 7:00 PM that night our offer had been accepted and the next day we began the steps make everything official.

I have to throw this little video on here, because it is such a perfect snapshot into how very different Burke and I are when it comes to making big life decisions.  I am very much a "feelings" person.  If I can't feel at peace about something, I will agonize over a decision and try every angle until it finally feels right.  Once I get that feeling of peace, I am like a lightning bolt!  I want to move, to strike immediately.  While Burke is also driven by feelings of peace or discomfort, he is not exactly a mover and a shaker.  He could know heart and soul that something is right, but if left to his own devices, he will stew and ponder, fret and analyze every possibly outcome until he is finally forced into action (usually by me!).  When we decided to move forward with the house, I knew we felt united, but I also knew that Burke was internally having a major freakout because it was all happening so fast.  After we made the offer, he went straight to work and then we went straight from work that night to St. George for Kristen's endowment, so he really didn't have time to stop and process the decision.  We got a call from Donna on our drive down to St. George who told us our offer had been accepted and when we got off the phone, this is how excited I was and how overwhelmed Burke was...

I won't go into all the details about signing papers, inspecting the house, etc., but for the most part everything went extremely smooth.  On Thursday, February 20, we signed the last of the paperwork at the title company and left with the keys in hand, feeling so blessed and thrilled with this new chapter in our lives.

Mostly, we feel grateful that we had our financial paradigm shift when we did.  Through this process, we were reminded that our focus should be on faith, family and serving others, not on amassing wealth or status.  We were reminded that it's best to begin with a home well within your means rather than causing yourself (your marriage, family, etc) undue stress just to look more successful than you really are or to dwell in an environment that is more posh than you can afford/need.

At one point, Nellie asked me if I thought we'd settled.  I suppose in some ways we did.  Since we've been married we've always had double sinks in our master bathroom, in the Mesquite house we had a fantastic great room/kitchen where we could host lots of big get-togethers with friends and family (which we love to do), and in the last Cedar house we loved the bonus guest room over the garage.  Those are definitely aspects that I miss (mostly the dinning room for gatherings), but there will be time for all those things in the future.  I much prefer having the peace of mind knowing that we are not trying to keep up with the Jones's and that this little home fits our family perfectly for this stage of our lives.

If you too are contemplating a big financial move for your family, just ask yourself:

A) Can we afford it?

B) Do we need it?

C) Will this enhance or distract from our family's happiness and peace of mind? 

Ok, enough preaching!  I'm just very pleased that we were able to land somewhere that we are so happy and content with.  Not to mention we have great neighbors. :)  And although the spare bedroom is no longer quite so roomy, we have an extra bed and a hot meal with your name on it!  Come see us!