Are you ready to cry? O.k., wait, maybe that's just me. I might cry. I always cry when there is moving involved. Leaving this home brought many tears. Do you remember all of the blood, sweat, and tears we put into our first home?
If you missed it you can read the posts here at the old format.
Our First Home: A Unique Lovestruck Disaster
Our First Home: Frustrating Foundation Failures
Our First Home: Revealing the Living Room!
Our First Home: The Quaint Farmhouse
The story of our first home ends on a sad note. As you know, when we lived in this home we were both in graduate school and planning our wedding when all of the construction chaos went down. At the same time Mark was finishing up his program which meant he needed a job. After months of searching, he couldn't find work in Vermont that seemed to fit his passions in his field. So he started to do a search out of state. During his search he stumbled upon a company that was hiring in Virginia. After more research, we decided it sounded great and he applied. Shortly after he was asked for an phone interview, then an in-person interview. Seeing as this was heading in a good direction (minus the moving part) we moved forward in 'checking it out.' Worst case scenario, we visited a new area in Virginia that we had never been to before.
If you missed it you can read the posts here at the old format.
Our First Home: A Unique Lovestruck Disaster
Our First Home: Frustrating Foundation Failures
Our First Home: Revealing the Living Room!
Our First Home: The Quaint Farmhouse
The story of our first home ends on a sad note. As you know, when we lived in this home we were both in graduate school and planning our wedding when all of the construction chaos went down. At the same time Mark was finishing up his program which meant he needed a job. After months of searching, he couldn't find work in Vermont that seemed to fit his passions in his field. So he started to do a search out of state. During his search he stumbled upon a company that was hiring in Virginia. After more research, we decided it sounded great and he applied. Shortly after he was asked for an phone interview, then an in-person interview. Seeing as this was heading in a good direction (minus the moving part) we moved forward in 'checking it out.' Worst case scenario, we visited a new area in Virginia that we had never been to before.
We visited Charlottesville, and met the company owners together when we arrived and Mark interviewed individually the next day. Before we left they made an offer. We had some big decisions to make! After some time, we decided together that we needed to make the jump. Certainly we couldn't live without an income, and the change just seemed 'right.' We decided to take the plunge, which meant we would need to try to sell the house. I really didn't want to sell the house, I mean it was finally looking and feeling like a cozy home! But after visiting Charlottesville, I knew it was what had to be done. We had to figure out what was going to happen with the house. We certainly didn't want to be landlords from afar. We felt God's calling and as crazy as it sounds, we knew we had to sell this house. But how would it sell?
It was a terrifying journey. The house was a disaster just a few months before and although we had worked hard to paint most of the house, we still had projects that would need to be completed before we could put the house on the market. We discussed our plan with our realtor (the same one who helped us purchase the house. God Bless her!) She suggested some finishing touches to some of the rooms upstairs, that we had planned to leave unfinished for a bit due to costs. She also suggested we add an addendum to the listing explaining why we were selling so soon after we purchased the home. We also had before and after pictures on the listing, to show the improvements we made. Fresh chocolate chip cookies at each showing didn't hurt either.
Our realtor, Mark, and I all saw how God can make things work the way he wants them to even when something seems like an impossible task. We had many calls about this home, multiple visitors to inquire about the home, or stop by our yard for the phone number on the For Sale sign. I remember three or more offers all within a two week period. The house was "priced to sell" even though we had put a lot of time and money into the home. We had a couple of offers but the offer we took was one we couldn't refuse. I remember the day our realtor called me and started with, "Are you sitting down for this, you are never going to believe this!" This offer allowed us to close on the house shortly after we had planned to move to Virginia, after our wedding and honeymoon. The exact timeline we had hoped for, but felt might be unrealistic.
We had a fantastic wedding by the way, the house disasters did end with a "happily ever after!"