We recently had a bright idea to fulfill a lifelong dream of building a home on acreage and call it our new farm. A friend's advice was, " Better do it now; you're not getting any younger."
Three years ago we sold our farm in SC to relocate to Ga to be near my grandbaby and watch her grow up. That part has been nearly perfect. It's been a few years later that we got the itch to find land again to grow another farm taking the leap to build a house with a view...not a cookie cutter variety either, but one that suited us and our lifestyle. Our dream was that it had to be open spaced and have a long range view.
Normally, I'm all about the spiritual connection to a place with the vision to move forward there. It surprised us both with the sloping rolling pasture we found that he felt the connection, like he was there in a former life or maybe his ancestors came from it. I knew I had to work hard to make it feel like I belonged, but I was willing and very excited.
Before we knew it, we quickly and easily had our home sold, bought the land and moved our life's belongings into several storage units. Our new place to call home for the next 8 months was a 31' RV; just a stone's throw from our new build. How exciting to have our feet on our new land and our eyes on every step of the construction. It was nearly perfect except for my husband's claustrophobia of small spaces and my 5'7" frame hitting my head on every sharp overhead corner. We managed to fit three Labradors into their own bunk room and the cat had free rein everywhere else. Cooking on an electric eye and outdoor grilling was pretty easy but laundry was not. We opted to buy a small sized washer to hook up to our well and hang the clothes to dry. Regardless, we prevailed with 10 acres just outside; he mowed all day long. I spent my time planning and planting orchards and raised beds. Thank God it was a temporary situation with the lovely hope of a new home in just a few months.
The build went surprisingly quick once they broke ground, and our builder allowed us to do some special finishing interior touches ourselves. We ordered all the fixtures, appliances, windows, natural woodwork, 8' doors, tile and flooring. When the walls were up and painted, we took over. It was a hectic and hard 3 months plus more for landscaping and final garden planning. We finally finished the job, with a few hiccups fitting doors into too small openings and repainting windows black for the 4th time because the ceiling guys splattered white paint on them. We were/are extremely pleased with the outcome and even brought tears to our builder's eyes when he walked in to see the final product. He was so impressed on how it turned out. It was bright, natural and so open with a view of rolling pastures; it was unbelievable.
The day after we moved in we sold that RV. We did have a fleeting moment of, "Maybe we should keep it?", but after a big sigh of relief decided we couldn't sell it quickly enough!
I've been able to put my touch to the interior, garden spaces and orchards to create a vision for myself here. I'm getting closer and closer to it. It's getting clearer why I'm on this new space. I remind myself often of my own words...
"You can start a new passion, begin a whole new journey and enjoy all the stages of your life differently."
The grass has finally grown back over that spot that housed the RV.
Our oldest dog Gus kept going back to it, reluctant to move forward.
But for us..? We never looked back.
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