Selling Our Dream Home

BTW – This post is just 1 in a series of Home Design and Build posts. You can find them all right here: Positively Jane's Home Design and Build.

For years we talked about building our FRP – Final Resting Place. We would dream and wonder where we wanted to retire. We wanted a destination place. A place for our kids to visit. A place that they would set aside the time for and consider it a vacation.

And for about 10 years we thought we were moving to Palmetto Bluff, SC. We built a small 1,500 square foot cottage there and spent as much time as we could.

My 2 younger kids got married there and we just loved it. But something happened…the building prices kept getting higher and higher and we realized that we could not afford to build a larger house there.

But now where was the FRP going to be?

We talked about all of the things that we loved to do…and finally decided on building on a lake. We chose Reynolds Lake Oconee because we were familiar with the lake and neighborhood.

So, we sold the cottage and bought a lot. We then sold our main house and moved into a rental. So that we could design and build our dream house. The Final Resting Place.

And went to work hiring an architect and a builder. It took about 18 months for the complete process and it was great.

I was able to design the house to my specifications. And around my fave pieces of furniture. We had guest rooms for our family. I designed my dream craft room (you can watch the video HERE). Our lot was like a park. The sunsets were stunning. We loved our pool. SO many things were perfect.

And then…

But as time marched on it became too much. Willy, my husband, had back and hip issues and it was hard for him to keep up with it all. Yes, we had lawn people….it was the cleaning of the boat and just general home ownership maintenance that was difficult. PLUS – all of the maintenance was becoming expensive. It seemed like something quit working every month.

Willy went out west for 10 weeks in the summer of 2022. And after 10 weeks of traveling and being a free bird…he realized that it was time to move on. As hard as it was. How could we say goodbye to a dream? And where would we go?

As an aside, when you get down to it…a house is just a house. A place to hang our hats and lay our heads. It is not what drives us or determines who we are. And if it's time to go…it's time to go.

As it happened – our house was now worth a lot of money. More than we ever dreamed or imagined. So, we went back to Palmetto Bluff and took a look around. And fell in love all over again. We were ready to say yes to that move except for a few key factors…that would put us SO far away from our family.

Our families are important to us.

We would be at least 4 hours from everyone. We would no longer be considered ‘for the weekend'. And there was Eleanor – how could we move so far from her (and her parents of course).

And so we just didn't know. But the house wasn't selling (it had been on the market for 4 months during the HOT market) so we didn't have to make a decision.

During Thanksgiving weekend Nicole, my youngest and the mother of Eleanor, and her husband, Zach (dad of Eleanor in case you were wondering), asked us to consider moving to Greenville. They wanted us to be in Eleanor's life all the time – not just 6 times a year. We talked it through and thought it was a good idea. And guess what happened? The house sold 3 days later. God was just waiting for the conversation to happen – He wanted to prevent us from making the wrong decision.

And there we were – selling our FRP. Selling our dream home. And I was determined to NOT build again (you can read all about that right HERE). I wanted to renovate and be done.

But whatever we decided to do…we were no longer moving to the FRP – we are calling it the next step in our journey together.

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