It's Love!

I’m madly in love! With my house.

Okay, I’m madly in love with my husband, too, but this blog is not about my sappy love life.

Before we bought our house, we looked at many, many houses. In Iowa, it’s customary to make a verbal offer. When we were interested in a house, we’d discuss our price, and then our realtor would call the other realtor. In more than one case, the negotiations took place before we even saw a piece of paper. Once everything was hashed out, then we’d firm it up in writing. We made verbal offers on two homes, and nearly bought a third. We put earnest money down and made it to the home inspection stage, which is where the last deal died.

So what I am trying to say is that we kissed a lot of frog-houses before we found this princess. By the time we found her, I was a little jaded, to say the least. We had an offer on our old house, and the offer on the one mentioned above fell through, so we were really in a bind. Fortunately, our closing date was two months away, but we were still pretty worried that the perfect house wouldn’t come along, and we’d have to move from our old house into whoknowswhat.

I actually saw this property listed online, and came back to the listing many times before I asked our realtor to go and see it. It was way out of our price range, and not in an area in which we had been looking. So it was kind of a whim. It was advertised as “scenic” and overlooking a river valley, and the photo of the house (a similar shot to the one here on my profile) intrigued me.

So we went to look, but I was sure this wasn’t the one. But, it was the one for B. He was sold on it before he saw the inside of the house! It is nothing if it isn’t scenic around here! You can’t see another soul for miles on nearly all sides. In the wintertime, when the leaves are gone, you can see the neighbor’s house, but he is about 1/3 mile away. And the 20 acres was more than the 2-5 we’d been considering previously.

When we went in, of course, the décor blew us away. And, I must say, I wasn’t blown away in an impressed way!! We knew it would be a lot of work. But B had never been swept away by the previous houses. He went along with me and was agreeable on all of the ones I wanted. But he was passionate about this one!

I am not a stupid woman. I decided that if I made the house HIS idea, then he would never blame me for taking him away from the comfy burbs. It worked! And here we are today, blame-free.

But it has taken me a long time to come to love this house. I love being out here, I love living out away from everyone, I love the land, the horses, everything that goes with being out here. I just didn’t fall hard for the house.

After I moved in, I saw her beauty. I look at her as a beautiful “Ivory Girl,” wholesome, sturdy, and full of natural beauty. Unfortunately, the previous owners whored up the Ivory Girl with gaudy décor. She’s full of the house equivalent of red lipstick, dyed hair and feather boas. We are working hard taking off the warpaint and scrubbing her up. And I know now that I love her.

We recently received the title abstract for the house. It is full of details about the house, of course, including all of the previous owners. The land was a land grant to Bernhart Henn in 1854. The house wasn’t built until 1920, but think of everyone who has passed through this house. It was not a one-family farm. The house has had eight families live here. That’s nearly one family a decade! That makes me love her more—all of those influences on these four walls.

I came home on Friday from work, and just felt overwhelming warmth as I walked in the door. It smelled familiar, the horse smell on our barn clothes on the back porch. We had pasta the night before, and that smell lingered. Even the smell of the garlic bread that I nearly burnt greeted me as I opened the door. And it was so warm and cozy.

It happened again today, after doing some Christmas shopping. I came back to the house hug. And this evening we got our Christmas tree. Now, accompanying the hug is the smell of pine and cinnamon and all things holidayish.

Ahhhh, I am home. It’s going to be a wonderful, magical, simple and uncomplicated Christmas.