Our New House!

We bought a house! Despite not being able to sell our house in NC yet, we were able to buy one here because it was the same price as renting. We love this house! It was built by a Christian family who had 4 children, so it has many features that suit a larger family, including a laundry shoot! I love this thing! The children are so excited to use it that I no longer have to rifle through drawers searching for dirty clothes they shoved back in--no instead they run to throw their clothes down the shoot! AND, the laundry room is right off my kitchen, which is very convenient to do laundry while I am homeschooling instead of running up and downstairs. I am finally staying caught up on laundry! Each of the children's room has HUGE walk-in closets. There are 5 bedrooms, 4 of them upstairs in the middle of which is a small living room. We are able to fit all of our books up in this area--three of the bookshelves fit perfectly in a hallway that was built extra-wide, it seems for this very purpose! We also have a large finished, daylight basement for the children's playroom, an office and a third living area. The playroom even has a little "castle" made under the staircase with two windows and a door. We especially love the layout because the kitchen, dining room, and living room on the main level are one large area, which we think helps the family to be together and makes for cozy times in the winter months. Cameron's favorite feature is an outdoor wood burning boiler which heats the house radiantly through the floors. This thing is so cost-efficient as well as amazing at heating a home. And, who could not fall in love with this porch? (AND it has a Weeping Willow!! They are so beautiful!) Lastly, the house is situated on a small private dirt road and we are on a little cul-de-sac.

It seems like this house was made for us! Can you tell I am excited about it? Yet this house was less expensive than our house in NC. God really laid it on our hearts this past year to not buy what we could afford, or even buy a larger home because we have a big family (this house is smaller than our home in NC was), but to live well below our means. When we finally sell our home in NC (and we now have someone who has signed a lease to rent it for two years) we will have our cheapest mortgage yet! It was well worth the year of waiting on the Lord, praying for Him to provide the right house for our family. God used this past year to change OUR hearts, specifically about what we thought we wanted and needed. Indeed, if you saw the houses we originally were interested in and then compared them to what we bought you would be surprised at the differences! I think we drove our real estate agent a little crazy! LOL!

It feels good to finally be settled here in Michigan, back in my home town. The most ironic thing of all is that the house we bought is only a mile from where we were renting! The reason this is ironic is because we originally thought we would not live this far from Cameron's work. However, after a year of making the commute Cameron realized it is not that big a deal. This house had been on the market last year, but it took us a year to find it because we were not considering this particular area. We had passed by the road this house is on many times on family walks and had no idea that we would one day be living here!

I am looking forward to having a garden again, getting chickens again, and decorating this house to reflect who we are as a family! It is good to be home.

In Christ, Laura