It has been almost a year since I posted asking for your prayers for us as we searched for a house to buy. We did find a suitable house. Not our dream house, but a sturdy house with enough living space and bedrooms not only to accommodate all of us, a lovely young lady boarder, and occasional guests, but also to allow us to "call the neighbors in" as we love to do.
The house is close enough to walk to those neighbors' homes, to Dan and Taryn's house, to church, to the park, to restaurants, a small organic market, a farmer's market, and both the metro and the train station where John begins and ends his daily commute. My sprout of an idea of walking or biking where we need to go is starting to blossom here.
The house was built in 1950. For the past five years, it was a rental property, and it shows. It needs a lot of work, both cosmetic and structural, but by the grace of God, the structure does seem mostly sound. We are watching a few cracks in the foundation of the sunroom addition. The roof will need to be replaced, possibly including many of the actual boards under the shingles, in the next 3-5 years. And let's not talk about the retaining wall that keeps us from sliding off the hill. I have a dream for it, but it's going to take some time.
On the bright side, the moldy paneling, water-stained carpet, and root-bound floor tiles in the basement have been removed, mostly through the efforts of John and the local Catholic men's group, the Barnraisers. With the help of Katie's teenaged friends, new paint has freshened up the school room, dining room, and Patrick's room. More painting is yet to come. The "greige" paint (as the children call it) in the front hall and master bedroom has got to go! I'm a little stuck in choosing replacement colors, but hope to get past that by the time we get out of school and have time to paint. John and I are learning more every day about home maintenance. We are dreaming of new bookshelves for the living room. And we have learned that the simple act of hanging our own pictures on the walls resulted in making everyone feel more at home, more permanent, than any other thing.
With prayer, the welcoming spirits of our new neighbors, and God's grace, we are settling into this community.
It is the community, after all, that drew us here. Dan and Taryn discovered it and moved here first, in late winter two years ago. When they started telling us about it, we were intrigued. Here was a chance to live near family in a walkable community salted with Catholic neighbors who moved here with the intention of living in this place at this time: to do something beautiful for God and neighbor in what has been a beleaguered neighborhood inside the DC beltway.
Will Seath writes here about how it came to be.
And that is why we have chosen this busy, urban neighborhood, so different from our dreams of rural tranquility, in which to make our home.
No comments:
Post a Comment