The Dream House (part 2)

We stopped getting e-mails from our loan officer, then C lost his job. I had a few conversations with our bank and contractor, who were both quarantined with their families at home, scrambling to figure out which pieces of reality still existed and were still important. We were not. And it was honestly a relief to us that we hadn’t already started the project only to get stuck in the middle of it. Also, there would have been the problem of having no income…

So we counted our blessings and sheltered at home. Which, by the way, had gotten even smaller in January because we’d found mold on the window sills of those sheets of glass in our kids’s room. We had torn the drywall up and hastily moved our kids out into our living room. Our 600 or so sq. ft. of living space had turned into 500 or so. 

Fortunately, this summer, we were able to break away from our “cozy'' little home for a week here and there to go to my parents house in Entiat. While we were there, we started trying to picture what it would feel like to live somewhere less expensive than Seattle. C got a new job and we spent a lot of our summer in our own backyard, but very little time out enjoying all of the things we usually love about Seattle. Even our people were off limits; still are. The fact that the most expensive thing we do is just to live in this city, in Covid times, was starting to feel not worth it. Also, of course, no school, no lessons, no preschool, no childcare. Any sort of relief from this, for me, would be very nice. It had been my idea to take a few years off from work to get our kids through their young years, and make it possible for C to start a new career that would better support our family financially. The plan was, when they were in school, perhaps I could start a new career, or delve more deeply into writing and illustrating children’s books if I somehow had managed to get that dream off the ground. Like most of us, I didn’t plan on being a full time homeschool teacher. I had imagined my kids going to public school and me working again. Covid has made those years seem potentially quite a bit further down the road. 

Any big plans for building our DADU or an addition were on permanent pause, so we went ahead and spent some of that inheritance on a new roof and threw away the plastic sheeting that had been not so perfectly protecting our sweet progeny for the last three years. Why not make sure that our tiny living space didn’t get even smaller by complicating things with more leaks that cause mold and thus ensuring that the living room/bedroom/ would also soon be a school. Once we got the roof on, my parents offered to help us install some new windows. C insisted that we get used windows to save money since we weren’t very particular, and in the city, someone is always tearing out and getting rid of windows, kitchen cabinets and building materials, just because they want something different. (side note, we have a whole brand new kitchen, including dishwasher, in our shed, waiting for our DADU). So I scoured Craigslist and the Second Use website and sent C postings almost every day. He was too busy or just didn’t have the brain space to realize that we had a looming remodel opportunity that I didn’t want to miss out on. I was, as you remember, the one who would be spending the fall transforming our living room/kids bedroom into a school every morning and back into a bedroom every night.  

Finally, when I almost just ordered new windows from Lowes, so that we could have something when my parents arrived with the tools and the skills, C caved and did some research himself and picked out two windows from Second Use. I said, "perfect", and quickly tried to morph my brain around totally new window dimensions and designed that 90 square feet into a space efficient landing spot for my babies and their stuff. 

All of this happened while we were in Entiat with my parents, and though an argument about the ability of my Dad’s ancient dump truck to make it over the pass and back, threatened to put a stop to the whole plan, we were a go for replacing those leaky windows, gutting and remodeling the room. During that week in central Washington, we continued to muse about living in Entiat or Chelan. We were pretty sure that we could afford a larger and more comfortable house around there. We even looked at a few houses that were for sale in the area….however…. as much as I would love living near my parents, and the drier climate and beautiful scenery in central Washington would be a nice change, I still couldn't quite stomach the idea of raising my family in the same place that I grew up. It is an amazing place, to be sure, and who knows, someday we might end up there after all, but right then, it didn't feel quite right.

What about the peninsula? Not far from C’s parents. Also, full of breathtaking beauty. Life with ferries, (appealing to us). “Sure, let’s check it out,” we thought, and started perusing the internet and musing about it as well. C texted a couple of houses we liked on Redfin to his high school girlfriend S, (a dear friend of his still), who lives in Port Ludlow.

She immediately got back to him, saying “Come be my neighbor!” her next door neighbors had moved to California to be near their parents and were selling their house.

“Sure,” we said, “we’ll try to take a look at it when we get a chance.” She urged us to think quickly because the owners were actually already gone, and the husband had stayed back to fix things up as fast as he could, to get the house ready for sale.