The House That Faith Built: Letting Faith Guide A Big Decision

(This is the second post in a series titled “The House That Faith Built”. To read the first post in the series, click here.)

Letting Faith Guide A Big Decision

To say the church vote rocked our world is an understatement. We had a plan and were just four weeks from reaching the major goal.

Yet here we were, with a major decision to make.

That night we took the kids over to the church house and told them. We still had no idea what we were going to do, but we knew we wanted to include them in this.

What To Do

That night we wandered around the house inspecting, thinking, and dreaming. The damage to the property seemed almost worse than before. Since the church had owned the property they had been working on gutting the former 3-unit apartment building. Walls were torn out, cupboards were everywhere, and there was just such a mess. It was overwhelming.

Yet, there was also such possibility. The kids quickly found rooms upstairs to claim as their own. Their laughter and excitement were unpalpable and contagious. They didn’t see the leaky roof, the broken windows, or the old knob and tube wiring. The faulty furnace, lack of proper plumbing, and literal holes in the floor were mere inconveniences – problems to be solved quickly and easily.

We left that night and my husband and I started talking and planning. Started dreaming and wondering if this was the path we were supposed to take. If this was our promised land.

Free To Dream

The biggest problem, besides the state of the property, became blatantly clear quickly. While we were free to choose this route – free to decide to take this house and renovate it – this house did not qualify for the loan programs we were interested in. This house would require lending of a different variety.

So while we contemplated the different funding options, we started dreaming. We started taking measurements, drawing out floor plans, and figuring out where things would go. We started discussing things like full baths or half baths, roofing materials, and ceiling heights.

We also started doing a lot of research. Previously we hadn’t so much as renovated a single room, yet here we were contemplating taking on an entire house. Nightly, after the kids were in bed, we would sit down and discuss insulation options, which way a door should swing, and cupboard measurements.

Before long he was bringing home kitchen catalogs, paint samples, and showing me options online.

Slowly, we started putting it all together. Slowly, we started moving walls, adding new ones, and forming rooms. Ever so carefully we measured things out to scale and contemplated how to best use the space. It was far from perfect, and I am sure it looked exactly like you would expect from a couple of novices, but it was taking form on both paper and in our minds.

Now, it was time to meet with contractors.

A Meeting of the Minds

Contractors are interesting, to say the least. The first one we met with started out by telling me the house had “great lines.” I still don’t know what that means.

He was energetic, though, and had a great vision for the home. He wanted to use solid wood doors throughout, asked about pine versus maple, and even suggested a kitchen island. We left that first meeting energized and excited to see that first bid. We already had an idea in our mind of the budget and knew the cap we would be able to work with.

Sadly, the first bid came in extremely high. Higher than we ever dreamed of going. A second meeting to try and bring the bid down didn’t prove very successful. And while we were confident he could have done a great job, we knew it just wasn’t meant to be.

The second contractor we met with didn’t pan out either.

Then, a friend of ours recommended a contractor they had previously hired. A family-owned small business right in our own backyard, and we were immediately intrigued. We had seen the work these guys did and our friends raved about them. So we set up the first meeting.

A Contractor’s Dream Come True… or Nightmare

By the time we got to meet with the third contractor, we were really starting to wonder if this was the right thing to do. It has been almost six months since the initial church vote, months past our own waiting period, and I was getting impatient. All of this waiting and indecision was stressful and difficult. We had even talked about possibly walking away if this third contractor didn’t work out – if we weren’t able to make the house work. Take it as a sign from God Himself that it was time to move on.

Our first meeting with him went well. He struck the perfect balance between the two we previously met with. He was honest, polite, knowledgeable, filled with ideas, and seemed like he would be easy to work with. We talked with him about some of our ideas, things we had questions on, and found ourselves again wandering through the house wondering if this was going to happen.

The meeting went well and we parted ways filled with a newfound optimism for the project. Something about that meeting just felt right.

The first quote came in a little high as we expected, but not unreasonably so. High enough to need to be cut back, but close enough to be within the realm of possibilities. So we met again to discuss trimming the budget, removing some items, and taking on some of the work ourselves.

All the while though, part of me felt that we were grasping at straws. Doubt began to engulf me as my husband started talking about scraping and painting the exterior of the building, laying all of the interior flooring, and having us do all of the interior painting. I started wondering how we would do this while he was working full time and I was busy running a website and homeschooling the kids.

I started wondering why we were even contemplating such a difficult path to homeownership.

Promised Land or Golden Idol?

My mind tends to wander in some strange ways, especially when a decision is weighing on me. I am a natural planner, a person who likes things laid out all nice and neat, in an orderly fashion.

This whole project was anything but.

I really started to wonder if this was God’s plan or if we were trying to make it His. If we were supposed to be trying to make this house work or if this house was simply a distraction from the path we were on the year before. The nice, neat path to a house. One that was all ready to move in to and didn’t require things like a new furnace, a new roof, and even new walls.

So we did what any reasonable person would do. We got a Realtor.

The Realtor we worked with was someone my husband knew through work and she knew of our dilemma. She was willing to sign a short-term buyers agreement and work with us knowing we may not even purchase. She was great, too. We looked at house after house in the area… but none of them were right. Many were just too small for a large family. Several had evidence that major work would be needed soon if not immediately. And the closest one to perfect had no space for the kids to play outside.

It seemed as if the market didn’t hold a house for us.

And God was directing us back to that neglected, run down, fixer-upper.

We are not at the end of our journey! To read part three, click here.