We moved to the country 15 years ago. My husband and I were both raised in the city and when we considered moving to the country neither of us knew for sure if we would like it. The convenience of shopping malls, specialty stores and family and friends living near were some of the things we knew we would miss. But we decided to try it because there were so many things about living in the country that appealed to us. We looked for several years for the right property and we looked north, south, east and west of OKC not really sure where we wanted to be. I had envisioned an old 2 story clapboard farm house with a wrap around porch and a big old red barn sitting on a hill over looking a meadow........hahaha, was I ever snapped into reality when we pulled up in the drive way to look at our soon to be "home in the country." I told my husband, "you can forget it, I'm not even getting out of the car." He coaxed me out, "come on be open minded you really don't know what it's like yet." I thought, from what I see looking at the front of the house I don't know that I want to see anymore. The house was built out of cinder blocks and had burglar bars over the windows. No landscaping, white rocks in the flower beds, not one flower, bush, nothing. The house was 50 years old and had been the home place of a dear family of 5. The wife had died and the husband remarried and the children didn't want their father living in their home with another women so he had been renting the house for the last 5 years. In the last 30 years, nothing had been done to the house. It needed to be totally up dated. The washing machine was in the kitchen! We walked through the house and went outside and walked around the property and we could see that it had a lot of potential and we both felt this was the house we were to buy.
After we moved in and friends and family came to visit, I know they were wondering what in the world have they done. At times I wondered the same thing until I was overcome by the peacefulness and quiet of the country, or the beautiful sunrise that I could see from my kitchen window or the beautiful sunset that I would watch from the orchard. Yes, there is an orchard. Two huge pecan trees, 3 huge pear trees, an apricot tree, cherry and apple (these last three had bores) and were replaced with 3 peach trees. We have a barn, which I love, it's not red but it's a barn. We also have a cellar and a greenhouse which I hope to get functional soon. It didn't take me long to realize that I was going to love living in the country and the thing that really surprised me, I was totally content with the house as it was. It was ugly on the outside but it had a wonderful feeling on the inside despite all the things that needed to be done to it.
We lived in the house for five years before we started to remodel it. We decided to gut the kitchen, turn the garage into a den and we had a little sun room that had been part of a covered patio that we decided to open up into the kitchen and turn into a breakfast room. We started all of this in February thinking that we should be finished by May, yeah right, in August I was wondering if we would ever get our project complete. We finally finished in mid October and moved our new furniture into the den. The kitchen was beautiful. We put knotty pine hard wood floors in the kitchen and breakfast room. It all turned out just the way I wanted it. We also put siding on the outside of the house and painted it a butter yellow with white trim. Yeah!!! it was finally starting to look like a country home not the 2 story clapboard but something even better than that.
After we moved in and friends and family came to visit, I know they were wondering what in the world have they done. At times I wondered the same thing until I was overcome by the peacefulness and quiet of the country, or the beautiful sunrise that I could see from my kitchen window or the beautiful sunset that I would watch from the orchard. Yes, there is an orchard. Two huge pecan trees, 3 huge pear trees, an apricot tree, cherry and apple (these last three had bores) and were replaced with 3 peach trees. We have a barn, which I love, it's not red but it's a barn. We also have a cellar and a greenhouse which I hope to get functional soon. It didn't take me long to realize that I was going to love living in the country and the thing that really surprised me, I was totally content with the house as it was. It was ugly on the outside but it had a wonderful feeling on the inside despite all the things that needed to be done to it.
We lived in the house for five years before we started to remodel it. We decided to gut the kitchen, turn the garage into a den and we had a little sun room that had been part of a covered patio that we decided to open up into the kitchen and turn into a breakfast room. We started all of this in February thinking that we should be finished by May, yeah right, in August I was wondering if we would ever get our project complete. We finally finished in mid October and moved our new furniture into the den. The kitchen was beautiful. We put knotty pine hard wood floors in the kitchen and breakfast room. It all turned out just the way I wanted it. We also put siding on the outside of the house and painted it a butter yellow with white trim. Yeah!!! it was finally starting to look like a country home not the 2 story clapboard but something even better than that.
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