WHW: Renovation x3

We're baaaaaack - locked and loaded for renovation #3 y'all! I told y'all on Monday that I would share a sneak peek into our newest project and since we just closed, I can go ahead and show y'all all of the before photos. I do want to share the incredible story that goes along with this new home though. It was actually exactly a year ago when we fell in love with this home. It was in our desired neighborhood, completely abandoned and screaming for someone to bring her back to her former glory. (y'all know me...I refer to homes as people) Anyway, the local real estate agents didn't have much information and we were told it had been empty for upwards of 40 years. We decided to pull the property records and start doing some (stalker-ish) heavy research. We were a tad obsessed and desperately wanted to save this gem before it got any worse off. We ended up tracking down the owner's information and decided to write him a lengthy letter about our interest and vision for his home. The original letter was sent back to us so we assumed he had moved or had been placed in a nursing home, etc. We weren't ready to give up so we then tracked down the son of the owner (creepy I know...) and altered the letter and sent it off one more time explaining that we had first tried to reach out to his father. We had zero expectations but of course hoped that it would end up in the right hands. I mean, had this house just been forgotten? How would we just stare at it and give up?

It only took a week before I received a phone call from a North Carolina number and I somehow knew immediately that it was the owner's son. He was a doctor, in his 70's, and told us that our letter had spoken to him. He said that it had made him think of Chip and Joanna Gains from HGTV's Fixer Upper which he then proceeded to ask me had I heard of that show....He was speaking my love language at that point. He told me that his Father had adored that home and still talked about it even in his state of dementia. I got into telling him about our former renovations and how badly we wanted to move back to town, basically exactly where that home was located. I told him we had just finished a hefty renovation and knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into. He said it was ultimately up to his father and he worried that the decision couldn't quite be made until he had passed away. Of course we understood and didn't push the issue. He put us in touch with a fabulous local real estate agent that allowed us to tour and assess the property to really see what needed to be done.

We fell in love.

Fast forward EXACTLY one year. Our Burkeville home (my pride and joy) sold successfully and we were on the hunt for a new home back in town. We found our current home (one street over from the one we originally had our eye on) and immediately started to renovate this little gem. We adore it. Then the phone rang... it was the agent that had showed us the home the previous year. She explained that the doctor's father had passed away and he was going to be listing the home on the market and he immediately thought of us, the young couple that had written him the letter that he had saved.

Well y'all, our offer was accepted and we had the great pleasure of meeting this man and hearing all the wonderful stories about how much his father had loved this home. There was an auction to get rid of some of the belongings and we were able to hang out with this man and his family all day. It was the neatest thing - seeing how full circle this story came about. The town is super supportive and it has been so fabulous seeing the excitement that is bubbling up through the neighborhood! Although we've only been in our current home since October, we're diving head first into this new renovation. We have some pretty darn fabulous plans for this baby and I am SO excited to share this journey of a renovation with y'all - every step of the way, just like before! So...without further ado, here are the before photos and don't forget to stay tuned!