June 2008 - Our Small Yellow House

Evan and I purchased our first house. Yay!

We've known each other since November 1999. Our first date was under the stars at Smithville Lake viewing the Leonids the night before my midterm freshmen art school final. Got married in Gatlinburg on top of an Appalachian Mountain in 2003.


This small house needs loads of work. Being that it needs loads of work, we got it for a decent price. I still, to this day, think we could of gone lower on the deal. Alas, Evan assures me we got a good deal. So I try not to 'worry' on such a thing. Lots of 'worrying' commenced once we bought the house.


The A/C unit was from the '70s. We replaced it in the fall of '09 after trying to keep it going. I think the repair guy kicked the condenser too hard and killed it. Whatever. I am glad we replaced the old thing. It was ugly and loud.
The roof was worn out and needing replacing. The inspector gave us an estimate of 2-3 years left on it. HA! It leaked that winter and we replaced it in the spring of '09.
The windows were old and some cracked. The main window in the living room cracked majorly the first winter and had it replaced the following fall of '09 along with our two bathroom windows after freezing from the poor insulation that gave way to drafty bursts of cold air while taking a shower at 4am in freezing temps in the middle of winter.

After moving in, we discovered a lot of new cracks and settlement throughout. We had a thorough inspection and even had the guys come back to double check on things before buying. However and knowingly, we still bought the house with such great foundation problems. *Sigh.* Ambition and hope drove us to keep going with this great deal we stumbled upon. The market was lacking with buyers with the failing economy and the incentive to get a $7500 interest free loan from the government to help with some costs on fixing up the house, we pushed on. (It was used to pay for our roof and windows. We will be paying it off for the next 15 years. Thanks Bush. If we waited another year, we could have gotten the $8000 new homeowners credit and not have to pay the government back. Lame.)

The water heater's thermocouple went out in February of '10 and we spent the night at a Holiday Inn up the road for Valentine's Day to get ourselves a hot shower and bought us a new one from Home Depot, whom had a local heating and cooling repair place come and install it. Evan tried his darnedest to get that thing going again. Would have worked too if the stupid replacement had the right type of screws. They screwed on the opposite from the way the Whirlpool one went on. After too many COLD showers in the dead of winter at 4 am, it was time to replace it.

The previous owner had paid for foundation repairs to have piers set up to hold up the house in the settling clay. (This clay proves a nuisance throughout our gardening woes as well. Gotta love the Midwest.) It cost her $15,000. The process destroyed all the landscaping around the west side of the house from the front door to the south side where the fire place is located. It was all a pile of dirt. My dad helped level out the dirt and make it slope away from the house so that the water draining from the house would seep back into the foundation and cause more problems. He did a good job. He got the grass mowed and trimmed with our electric mower and weed eater. Cleaned out our garage and helped tear out the carpet in our bedroom. Installed a garage door lifter and grilled some awesome hamburgers for us. He was a great dad.

Here's a bit of back history on why we were so eager to move into our small yellow house.

This house sits at the end of a no outlet street of which three other houses share and a small church that sits across with a small lot of land next to it. A right of way for power lines sits on the north side with the Ford assembly plant. (It is not viewable, but a little aromatic for my taste on days they are painting the F150s and Escapes. Those days are far and few in between. And it is a bit noisy, but I've grown to adjust to it with it being more of a white noise calmer.) The neighbor's house behind is set back a bit so it is not directly behind us, but more behind our neighbor next door to us on the south side. His house practically sits 30 feet away from ours. Our house is our first true bit of solitary after living in the art school's dorm rooms and the three apartments we've moved from. All every bit annoying and rambunctious with noisy people. Let alone being within ear shot of some stranger peeing like they just drank a gallon of water while you are trying to sleep. Blah. Not to mention the all the La guaracha sabrosona music blasting and vibrating the floor below you while you try to watch a movie or read a book. AHHHH! It drove me mad. I was ready to move. No holding back. This house spoke to me to move in and we made it a point to make that happen.

I had my doubts. I didn't want to move in after all the inspections and warnings from my dad. I didn't want to fall prey to the housing industry and be broke and fall into foreclosure. Evan assured me once again and said it was ours and we were meant to be here. So July 31, 2008, I turned in our keys to our apartment and the house was officially ours. That same day, Evan was laid off from his job.

Evan got a temporary job in the fall of '08 and was later laid off again in the spring of '09. During which his mom got really sick in December '08. Her cancer came back and her treatment for it knocked her off her feet so to speak. He spent a lot of traveling back and forth to Shreveport to help out which worked out for being out of a job as he spent a month in Shreveport taking care of her. She passed away on July 4th of '09. At the same, my dad got really sick with cancer as well and only after fighting it for a year, he passed away in March '10. I spent a lot of time helping out with him as my mom did her craft shows in the summer of '09. Our first three years have been rough after our initial move in.

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all bad. We had good times in between all that sucky, crappy, terrible time. Evan's brother got married in Las Vegas in August of '08. His sister got married in May of '09. His mom was able to go to both. We had our camping trips, fishing, festivals, our cute puppy dogs, and best of all our family. There was and still is to this day, Flannigan's Right Hook. If it wasn't for their music. I don't know how I would have gotten through all the hardship.

Some how we survived. We persisted. We moved on.