As we've had this opportunity to build our dream home and approach moving in I've been reminiscing on our humble beginnings:) and just looking back at the building, trailer, home, and apartment that got us here.
We ended up fixing up two back rooms in an old building in Shawnee. Yes, a building not a home or apartment. Just an ugly building that was right off a Main Street. How did this building become an option? My mom has owned a consignment boutique in Shawnee for over 10 years and this building happened to be owned by her leaser and had been vacant for a long time.
Except for all the mice that inhabitated it.
We had planned for me to open and run an extension of my moms store next door when we first moved in, but life happened:)
We had two small rooms in the back and no kitchen, no washer/dryer, and no shower at first. We had to drive out to our parents or to a friends home who lived nearby each evening to shower for the first 6 weeks until my dad installed a small one. I had a 2ft by 3ft area with a small sink, hot plate, and toaster oven to cook with. You would be surprised how much you can cook with just those options:) I carried our dishes in a tub next door to wash in my mom's building which had a kitchen nook. I still remember we were woke up one night by a loud shrieking which turned out to be a baby mouse that had been caught in a trap. If you know me then this was one of the saddest sights ever...I think we had to remove all traps because I was scarred by seeing this poor mouse suffering:/ We managed all this for 8 months before it was time to move!
Wish I could say we really moved on up at that point and at the time it sort of felt like we had. Our 'new to us' abode actually had a kitchen and full bathroom.
For the next 1.5 years we lived in an old deserted trailer home that belonged to my granny and it was from the 70s. It was full to the brim of junk/storage. Therefore we started the process of clearing it out and remodeling some. Pulling out nasty orange shag carpet and vinyl flooring to replace it with new flooring and cleaning the nasty mess the trailer had become from sitting so long and yes more mice...cleaning mouse poop off every surface and eliminating them before moving in this time...yuck.
Finally got the place clean although we were surrounded by floor to ceiling wood paneling the place was liveable:) Where the floor met the wall you could actually see slivers of daylight come through cracks. No joke.
I still had no oven because the old one in there didn't work, but the stove top did! We gratefully had hand me down washer/dryer that shook the whole trailer every time you did laundry.
Not to mention all of our very classy neighbors. Including finding out our direct next door neighbor was a registered sex offender. Many of friends can remember some 'trailer trash bashes' (as was fitting to call them) hosted at that place:)
Turns out you don't take many pics of your living space when it's just a building or trailer. I have this one pic of all the lovely paneling in the trailer after we got new carpet put in. Fancy huh?
In the time we lived there I became pregnant and Mason applied for Edmond PD. An officer from Edmond PD even came to do Masons 'home visit' while living in this trailer. Really surprised he made it past that point in the hiring process haha! We had a lot of laughs in that place though!
Just a few weeks before my due date Mason found out he got the job! 2 weeks after he started police academy Breyton made his entrance into the world while we were under contract for our first real house. When Breyton was 5 weeks old we made the move from Shawnee to Edmond. And yes that means Breyton was born into the world as trailer trash. Luckily he has no recollection of those first few weeks of life:)
Our first home was an amazing blessing and a gorgeous step up from previous abodes. Everything, beautiful, fully functional, and most importantly no mice! I will never forget the memories made in that house where we watched B grow up in for his first 3 years.
Saying good bye to our first home!
One thing about making the sacrifices to live where we did is we had all that time to save up quite a bit of money to put forward to our home.
Out of nowhere God led us to an opportunity for Mason to do security for some nice apartments and in a matter less than two weeks went from having no plans to sell our house/move to putting our home on the market and immediately having to move into the apartments. Our home sold quickly and the apartments have been nice while they've lasted! We planned to live in the apartments for close to 2 years at least before beginning to build. Then we got baby D and I became pregnant again:) We made it close to one year here haha since we very quickly are outgrowing the apartment life.
Here we are 11 months later and less than two weeks out from moving to our dream home. I wouldn't change a thing about where we started to where we are. I mean I probably wouldn't be near as grateful for this future home without some pretty humble beginnings. I can't wait to spend (hopefully) the next 20 years not moving again and raising our children in our new home!
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