HOUSES FOR SALE

One Sunday after church, the genius and I were riding through the old neighborhood when I noticed that our house on Haverford was for sale and had an open house that afternoon. I quickly made plans to go back and see our first little house in Nashville. As I stepped into the same little entry hall, I was totally unprepared for the changes that had been wrought over the years.

To the left was the living dining room, but it was much bigger. A wall had been knocked out between the living room and small den that we had made from the garage when we lived there, creating one large room. Behind the entry hall, the small kitchen had been made much bigger by knocking out the wall between it and a bedroom. Behind the kitchen a huge den with a fireplace had been added with stairs leading up at the side of the room to three bedrooms and two baths upstairs. A huge master suite had been added to the rear of the den on the other side. And two of the original bedrooms were still there, but they looked much smaller than I remembered. I was told that the additions occurred at several different times, and that many of the visitors that day to the open house had been former owners of the house. It was very interesting to see all the changes (also the price, which was $468,000.)

The very same thing happened to the house on Chickering Lane. Someone moved in and knocked out walls and added on to that house, also. I went back a couple of years ago when it was up for sale again. Walls had been removed between the living room and den and also the kitchen and dining room. The double garage was converted into a huge den with a new laundry room and bath attached. Then off the back of the study a master suite was added. Outside a beautiful new patio was built for outside entertaining, plus a carport-storage area. The upstairs was still the same, but lots of money had gone into the renovation of that house. They were asking almost $700,000 for it then, but with Nashville real estate prices the way they are now, I’m sure it’s at least a million if they decided to sell today.

So that’s the story of our lives with houses. We seem to be able to buy houses with lots of potential, but frankly, the genius and I have never been into renovating or even building from scratch. We’re just happy to find what we like and stay there and let someone else do the work.