Welcome to the new Visser abode… well sort of.

At the end of last year, my man and I bought our very first house… a definite fixer-uper, but that’s so us.

Today I want to tell you about it.

Waiting On Perfection

My husband and I have always known we’d move out of the house we’re living in now, and into something bigger. We wanted more room for our family to grow and more land to do the things we wanted to do with it. We wanted to create our own little haven somewhere. So for the past 5 years we’ve browsed around and looked at houses just for the fun of it.

What we’ve really been doing is waiting.

We knew what we wanted and we knew what we needed. Waiting on those two things to come together into one is difficult and a lengthy process.

Not only were we waiting, but we were saving money and praying that God would place the perfect thing right in our laps. Funny… that’s usually not the way He does things. It’s not like it’s crystal clear. I don’t see any signs or hear Him speak to me. No dreams… nothing like that. I’m not saying this sort of thing can’t happen, but it doesn’t happen to me. It’s not yet at least. Life would be so much easier (I think) if my choices were black and white… but they’re not. They’re gray… many, many shades of gray.

So during the past 5 years, we’ve come across potential houses that have been a good fit. In fact, we almost bought two different ones before this one.

One I loved! It was smaller than we wanted, but I knew we could build on to it. The land was what pulled me to it. It was beautiful. My husband though, just didn’t feel right about it. Neither did my dad. So to my disappointment, we moved on.

My husband was also dead set on a house that had a lot of potential at the same time, but it just wasn’t sitting right with me. It was large enough, but it needed more work than we really wanted to deal with. We were also going to have to compromise a lot of the things that were “musts” to us… like the amount of land that came with it and the price. This was a tough one. We almost went through with it… paying a lot of money for an inspection and almost heading to the bank, but I had to tell my man what I was thinking. Thankfully, he cares about my opinion, and we let that one go too. It was a bummer to him, but I just knew that it wasn’t what God had for us.

So we waited and looked some more.

Not even a month after we let that house go, we were heading home from church and saw a cardboard sign stuck on the side of the road that said “house for sale, Butler, TN” and had a phone number on it. We called it, the lady gave us the address and told us she was desperate to sell it. She lived in Florida and had been renting it, and she was just done with all that. It was too much. So we decided to check it out.

Funny thing when we pulled into the driveway… we’d been here before.

Four years ago, this house had been on the market and we looked at it then, but it was too much money and too far away. It didn’t sell so the owner had decided to try renting it… which obviously didn’t work well for her.

This time… it seemed like a perfect fit. It was big enough for us with room to add on, it had plenty of land (more than we’d been expecting), it didn’t need a ton of work, and the price was a steal. The best part of it all was that we both loved it and we could see building our lives here. Also, there were no objections from anyone who’s opinion we valued!

Long story short… a few months later we bought it!

We were really excited, and we’ve been working on things here and there. There’s a lot to do, but we’re both enjoying making it exactly what we want.

We’re completely gutting the inside of the house. Tearing out flooring, carpets, taking trim off, removing light fixtures, rebuilding the deck, ripping out bathroom everything… whew. The only thing we’re keeping are the cabinets which I’m refinishing.

Below you can see some before and in progress pictures. Enjoy, and I’ll be keeping you updated with our progress!

I love this view, and I can’t wait to show you photos during summer and fall. There are trees everywhere and so much room for the boys to roam! When the snow falls… it’s quiet and peaceful!

In these photos, nothing has been done except ripping the flooring out.

My husband and I have always wanted a wood burning stove so he’s built a little area for that. We’ve ordered our rock, but it’s not up yet. I think that will make a huge difference in how that space looks. You can also see that our boys love to help! They are good little workers!

I love all things antiqued, distressed, and vintage, and that’s the look I’m going for in our home. Sort of a Rustic Cottage in the woods which is exactly where we are. I didn’t realize how much was involved with taking new cabinets and antiquing them. It took longer than we both expected and A LOT of sanding and resanding. But… it’s done and we both love them!

I’ve also never had a pantry before so I’m excited about setting it up, but I’m not sure what to do on the inside… paint it or leave it. Thoughts?

Here you can see the kitchen has been painted blue, and the floor has been tiled and grouted. We love it! The dark floor really makes the antique cabinets stand out!

Hope you’ve enjoyed getting to see some of the progress in our house. There’s way more to go, but we’re chipping away at it. We plan on moving either the end of summer or beginning of fall! We’ll see, and there’s more to come!

Check out all four house to home posts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 (coming soon)!

xo xo, Meagan