Home Sweet Land

Today, for my birthday, I received an amazing gift. A house and 6 acres. This little purchase has been a prayer of mine for what seems like forever. For almost a decade, I’ve had it on my heart to live a more simple, natural lifestyle. Yes, I’m a proud “crazy, crunchy lady.”  I needed space of the wide, open variety and wanted a house of the tiny variety. We’ve been looking for over a year with no luck. I was starting to think I was doomed to subdivision life forever, but God had something unique planned for us.

This little place isn’t at all what I had originally dreamed of. It’s better! One of my favorite parts of loving Jesus is watching Him surprise me. It’s so much easier to let go of my type A plans knowing that His ways have always been above and beyond what I can imagine. This house is no different.

For starters, it’s not tiny. I adore tiny house living. Seriously, I could totally do it. But, it became apparent while we were pairing down that my people can’t. They can simplify but can’t do bare minimums. Bless, I still love them. God gave us a good compromise. The house on this property is 1250 sq ft. It’s not big. It’s not tiny. It’s little. 2 BR, 1.5 BA, plus an office. It’s perfect for us!

Secondly, it’s not in the right area. I had previously limited our search to Joelton and White’s Creek. Based on my research, I truly believe that area has a lot of potential in the next 5-10 years. However, I was coming to terms with no longer having grocery delivery and the proximity of other retail shops. That’s right, I’m the granola girl who LOVES modern conveniences. Our new place is 5 minutes from Providence where there is anything my heart could desire. Best of all, we are still in Davidson County (we are RIGHT on the line) which comes with some perks. It’s also closer to Mike’s family and closer to our homeschool co-op.  We are excited to get to know the Mt. Juliet side of town. Send us your favorite places and local businesses!

Also, it’s not 10 acres. It’s six. However, it’s as flat as can be which is a huge blessing. Many of the properties we looked at had lots of acreage but only a small section was usable due to steep inclines. Plus, we would’ve had to do a ton of development work just to get the land ready to build. This property is ready to play on starting this weekend! It’s a BEAUTIFUL lot with many mature trees, but it also has ample open spaces (helloooo garden!), and a wooded area too! It’s basically the best parts of all the properties we’ve ever looked at, combined into one. I can’t wait for everyone to come see it!

Oh, it’s more than I budgeted. I had a specific number in mind and this property is basically double that. Ha! It’s still well within what we can afford just not my original price point. But, the Lord already had a plan for that too. Mike received another promotion at work just 2 weeks before we closed. I really do love His surprises.

Finally, there’s an extra house. Yep! This land came with not one house, but TWO. I still can’t believe it. That NEVER happens. While we plan to remodel and live in the little house, there’s a larger second house on the property that we can tackle at a later date to use as a guest house. His wonders never cease!

This property was the final house in a LONG list of properties we have seen over the past year. I’ve spent more time on Real Tracs and PACTN than I care to admit and don’t even get me started on the times we have traipsed through the tick-infested woods of Middle TN.  I can’t exactly explain it, but the Lord promised this house to me the day we saw it. There were a couple of times in this process that I seriously still doubted this land would be ours. There were various hiccups with inspections, appraisals, and bank risk-benefit ratios. Every time I just kept coming back to Psalm 25:25 which says “All day long, I put my hope in you.”

This morning we signed on the dotted line. It’s ours. We have a pretty big remodel ahead of us. We are taking it down to the studs to get it up to snuff. Very little can be salvaged. Basically, everything will be custom, just like in my tiny house. Except better. Again, the Lord is so good to me.

I can’t wait to get started! In fact, we are starting tomorrow. You aren’t even going to recognize this house when we are finished with it. But you better get used to it, because this is where we plan to retire. Happy birthday to me! Homestead here we come.

BEFORE PHOTOS: