Never Say Never!!

                                    And so it begins.......  

A few years ago I was on a mission to find the perfect house in Maine, buy it, fix it up, and then maybe eventually move there...if we didn't move to our North Carolina fixer upper that is.  With some cajoling I was able to get Joel on board with the  whole idea of renovating yet another down and out property.  We ended up not getting the Maine house, but I do believe that things happen for a reason.  This beauty on the north side of Lake Delta must have been waiting for us.  Funny thing is we looked at it almost thirty years ago when we first moved back to Rome.  It just seemed too big and out of the way at the time.  A nice home in the city, near the library, parks, and play date friends seemed more reasonable when children came along, which they did!  Our Madison Street house fit the bill, and we enjoyed 20 plus great years there raising our kids and seeing it through one major addition and several minor renovations.  Flash forward to winter 2016.  Joel had moved beyond the idea of taking on another big project.  He just did not think we needed the stress.  If we were to move again a condo or apartment sounded just fine.  I was still hoping for one more place to design and have fun with colors and textures.  Oh well.  A marriage is about compromise and our current digs were just fine.  We moved here to Joel's childhood home on Turin Road after the kids headed off to college and completely remodeled the back half for what we thought was going to be our last abode. 

Most everyone has heard the tale of how we found our Emerald Isle home with all it's coincidences and funny twists and turns.  The story of this 1834 house is no different.  One day I took the dogs for a long country drive, coffee in hand, music on Sirius.  As I made my way around the lake I saw that the old house that we had liked so many years ago was for sale again.  I made note of it but forgot to tell Joel.  Meanwhile, that same night during a bought of insomnia, he was checking out realty websites for interesting properties.  1834 popped up.  It had only been on the market for a few days.  The next morning we got excited just talking about it and made the decision to go take a look.  One thing led to another and we decided to put in an offer.  We found out our figure had been accepted on the same day that I emerged from a successful surgery, and the keys were in our hands a mere few weeks later.  We move fast.  Only a month had passed from seeing it to owning it.  A champagne toast was in order as was making the front entrance pretty with flowers during the major upcoming renovations.  Aah, the fun begins!  Stay tuned.