I've always wanted to name a house /property. It never seemed appropriate until coming to this area of the country (Michigan) where many of the properties are cottages or lake houses with signs that say "Enchanted Oaks," "The Hideaway," "Das Minne Skihaus," etc. So we began thinking about a name and the first round started with names like "The Money Pit," "House Poor," "No Retirement In Sight," and so on. Those seemed to lack the ultimate charm I was going for until one day, with the breeze blowing gently through the trees, I decided on "Breezy Trees." Cute & catchy.
Of course, the property didn't start out looking like this. We purchased (well, the bank did) the house/ property (6 1/2 acres) a couple years ago - unfortunately, this was BEFORE housing prices took a dive - and it looked like the Beverly Hillbilly "before" house. The house was FILLED with animal heads and skins mounted on every wall surface, old rusted junk & boards scattered all over the yard, a small (cemented) pond - surrounded by weeds - that emptied into a fiberglass bathtub, a cheap & tacky looking enclosed porch, a never-completed pole barn with insulation hanging out of the open gables & eaves and a "rat maze" of wooden pallets as a floor, a small weird building pieced together out of old garage doors, rotten plywood and plastic bags, a house exterior that was one big blob of boring beige, no front walkway - you had to slide down the steep grass hill from the front porch and walk across the mud, strange holes dug around the yard for no purpose, and many many more "what was this person thinking" items. But the "piece de resistance" was the very large pit out back that contained several misc. dead animal carcasses! What a treat. We didn't find that treasure until after we'd moved in.
So what drew us (ok, only me) to the house you ask? Deep denial. We lived in college rental houses for 7 years before seeing this house so I had forgotten how much WORK/MONEY went into a fixer upper. There were a lot of houses on the market at the time but none, except this house, had my list of wants: location (the most important), short drive time to work & into town, mud room for dogs (another must), privacy/acreage, cape cod style, developed neighborhood, a bath tub in the master suite, etc. So I looked beyond all the negatives and jumped in with both feet. Nuts you say? Ok, I'll give you that.
