We Had A Nice House

We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood.  But some of our neighbors got homesick and sold their homes and went back where they came from.    

The neighborhood changed further when Covid arrived.  This was when people started to disinfect their groceries and Amazon deliveries.  People were afraid.  I was afraid.  Interaction among neighbors on the street was reduced to awkward conversations at the mail kiosk when people stood 20' apart and loudly asked how each other were coping with the threat of the virus and the isolation of the defacto lockdowns (there were no official government mandated lockdowns here).  More than once I concluded these conversations with, "OK, see you next year!"  I was only half joking.  We had a nice house but eventually whatever cohesiveness this neighborhood had succumbed to Covid.

Meanwhile, Covid was no joke.  Several people in this neighborhood got it and had long hospital stays and longer recoveries.  One of my wife's friends died.

I began to think that I was getting a preview of our later years, when we will further bow to Father Time and have slowed down even more.  What if Covid never stopped and we had to spend much of time self confined?  Wouldn't it be nice to live in a house to prepare for that time?  We looked at a few homes about 20 miles away, many had sewer grinder pumps (meaning no connection to city sewer), no natural gas connection or no cell signal.  

And then this piece of land became available.

Standing on the land we had just purchased.  Click here for larger picture

• It was 3 blocks from where we were living
• It had a view.  The homes across the street are restricted from building up by their HOA.
• Nearly an acre so we'll have plenty of lebensraum from neighbors and street traffic.
• Had municipal water and sewer, high speed Internet access and natural gas hookups.

But that was only the beginning.  In early 2021 the economy was still wobbly.  To sell or to build?  We spent a few months waiting to see what would happen and finally decided to build a new home on the land.  First we had to figure out what kind of home we wanted.  And then we had to find someone to build it.

I knew that whatever we build we'd need to have a deck and big windows in order to capitalize on views like this.  If I'm going to spend a great deal of time as a homebody because of age or infirmity I want something better to look at than Netflix or Prime video. 

Click here for larger picture and to see the snow capped peaks