Finding a Home
My very first place on my own was a one-bedroom on Broadway, walking distance from my job in a high-rise on Main. I had white curtains, white sheets, a warm exposed brick wall, and high, open ceilings. I loved hosting get-togethers and showing off my view of the Kansas City skyline. Then my sister and I moved into The Spider House, which was a slightly longer walk to work, but still close by. I disliked the hardwood floors that felt inhospitable, the creaking and groaning of that huge, old house, and the way that everything felt worn out. It earned its moniker when construction next door sent hordes of brown recluse spiders to take up residence with us, and we hastily retreated to a new home.
The next apartment my sister and I moved into was two houses up and two houses over. It was much newer, with fresh paint and high, open ceilings like my first place. I got a dog, and I loved living in a safe neighborhood where I could take her on long walks. Our landlady let us do renovations as part of our rent payments, so for my sister’s birthday I painted the bathroom, set up new décor, and replaced the bathroom sink and cabinet with the help of our carpenter dad.
Home to me is high ceilings, fresh paint, soft carpet. The bright white that says clean and new, with sunshine flooding in. Home must be near to everything—I hate a commute—and have plenty of space for friends.
I met a guy at a party through mutual friends, and after a year of dating long distance I decided it was time to move to Arkansas to be closer to him and his son. In Little Rock I found the perfect tiny place for me and my dog Scout. It was a matchbox house with a tiny kitchen and dining area, a little living room w attached bathroom, and a big bedroom with a walk-in closet. And it had high ceilings, too. It was one half of a duplex, and my adorable landlady, whose name was Story (can you believe it?) lived on the other side. Her parents owned the property and she gave me a key to her side so I could use the washer and dryer. Our dogs played like sisters in the yard.
There I painted the bedroom a comforting, womb-like red, and the living room and kitchen a happy yellow. That place was just so darling. I loved the sunshine that would stream in the multitude of windows. I loved the thick white trim that bordered everything along all its edges. And I loved how I had complete control of my space and my objects to maintain my own sense of balance and order.
Then came time for Doug and I to get our first place together, and for me to try being a full-time mom to Jack. Jack was staying with Granny while Doug went on a month-long study abroad program in Ecuador, and I wanted to set everything up while he was gone so he and Jack could arrive just in time to marvel at the finished product, Our New Home.
I had done moves by myself in the past and been successful. I didn’t take into account getting sick that first week, or the immense amount of help I would need from friends to move the belongings of not one but three people. And I am a perfectionist bordering on obsessive-compulsive: I had taken hours to paint my sister’s bathroom, and days to paint The Story Apartment. I didn’t realize that asking for help with the painting in Our New Home would spell unquellable panic as I noted too late the sloppy, imperfect result.
In fact, the week I took off for just Jack and I to spend time together was the highlight of that month. I’d thought I wanted solitude but I kept being startled by how much this kid could make me smile, and how helpful he was willing to be despite his scrawny size. We went swimming together every day that week as I taught him how to swim, using the powerful motivator of “Your dad is gonna be so proud of you.” Jack helped me move boxes and build bookcases. But the best part was realizing how much I liked having him around.
Of the paint colors I chose for Our New Home, the bright, bold blue was great in Jack’s room as a backdrop for all his solar system stickers and posters and factoids. And the blue was a good contrast to his favorite color, red, which coated most of his furniture and accessories. The warm gem-tone purple for the shared spaces wasn’t bad, though I shouldn’t have been so ambitious to think I could handle all the detail work of the living room, dining room, and hallway in such a short period of time. But the green that I picked for our bedroom was awful, and I regretted it every single day of our year living there. It was supposed to be a soothing shade of bamboo forest green. Instead it was a neon shade of Nickelodeon slime green.
When I got overwhelmed by the bad paint job, my parents and siblings came down to visit and help me fix it. And when I felt defeated that the unpacking was too big of a job to even begin, a friend from work came over and helped me set up the kitchen—an encouraging place to start. It was things like that that bolstered my spirits. Home, to me, is a clean space. A place that beckons you to relax because you know that everything is where it goes.
Doug and Jack and I fought a lot that year as we struggled through the swampland of our first shared space. Neither Doug nor I could be described as a minimalist. Doug didn’t like to get rid of things he might one day need, and he tended toward clutter. I like to binge and purge through different phases but I always want all my objects to have little homes. I admit, I have an unhealthy love for containers. Mess was a natural state for Doug, and Jack was Doug’s little clone, so with two-against-one in the war on mess I often felt drained by my Sisyphean task of keeping Our New Home feeling home-like.
In addition to squabbles over Messy v. Neat, it was my first time being thrown into the world of parenthood, and no one tells you how hard it’s going to be. The warnings they do give you slip past unheard, because you don’t even have a grid for understanding it ‘til you’ve lived it. That year of change was one of my hardest.
That was the year we found out that Jack needed to be placed in a special ed classroom. The year Doug was in school and I was doing three hours of homework with Jack every night. The year Doug was commuting an hour to his prison guard job. The year I tried putting blinders up against the unpacked boxes and endless mess to just keep going, because the chaos of crowded objects made me feel that nothing was right with the world. That was even the year that I postponed the wedding, not because of any doubts about Doug and Jack but because I could hardly make it through each day, let alone plan for the future. I knew it wouldn’t always feel that way, but it was so hard to be down in it.
And that was the year that I started writing again. Because I needed it more than ever. And on the page I remembered I could make order from chaos, pull thought from distraction—and I was able to start saving myself.
Around the same time that our friend Jessica broke up with her girlfriend and our friend Nelson was looking for a safer neighborhood, Doug and I were coming up on the end of our lease. Rather than rent another apartment with laughable storage space, we got excited by the idea of renting a house all together. We looked around online and in person until the perfect house was crowned our king: a gigantic three-story, 5 bedroom home in downtown Little Rock.
Introverts Jessica and Nelson each had their own spaces to hole up in, Doug and I shared a bedroom with built-in shelving, and Jack had the full finished attic to himself. One room we set up as our Library, while another room was our Study, for writing and homework. One bathroom had a shower while the other had a giant claw-foot tub. There was even a huge yard for Scout. And after my bad experience with painting spaces, I was relieved to find the owners had already painted their own bold colors room to room.
Doug and I got married there—I walked down that staircase. For three years we loved that house and made that house our home. We might have gone on loving it indefinitely but the owner let us know that he would like to switch to a month-to-month contract with the intention of selling the property. He suggested a two-month notice as a courtesy, and he also offered to let us buy before giving anyone else the chance, but it was way outside our price range, so we tried to decide what to do next.
Not having the security of a forever home made me feel the kind of anxiety I hadn’t known since that apartment fiasco. I absolutely required my home to feel like an unchanging constant, keeping me grounded and anchored. The thought that at any moment we could be only two months out from being homeless, that our home was so uncertain a concept that it could just be taken away—just thinking about it gave me that elevator lurch sensation. Our roommates Jessica and Nelson wanted to wait it out, knowing it could take a long time to sell. But to me that just felt insane—like walking out into the street on the chance that I may not get hit by a car.
My husband and I practice polyamory, which is the ethical maintenance of more than one relationship or lover at a time. Over the years we’d talked about finding a girlfriend who was “just right” for the both of us, but we’d shrugged it off as an impossible task and just carried on loving each other and sometimes other people. Doug met Adan and they started dating, and I didn’t think anything of it initially. But at some point Adan expressed an interest in dating not just Doug but me as well, and I was surprised to find how well the three of us got along. Adan identifies as genderqueer, so they use neutral pronouns, and we call them our theyfriend, a gender neutral version of boyfriend or girlfriend. So Adan was dating both Doug and I, and things were going really well. They got along with Jack, they could spend time with Doug when I was busy with school work, and I really appreciated the extra help Adan provided with chores and errands.
Adan had moved from Colorado to Arkansas to escape an abusive relationship, and was living with friends when we met them. But that living situation became uncertain when the couple divorced and the husband was about to be deployed—meaning Adan was about to be homeless.
Doug and I easily agreed that Adan could join our household. Jack was used to our the-more-the-merrier housemates mentality, and the roommates and landlord agreed that Adan could stay with us, at least for a few months. But Adan had assumed they’d be casually crashing on the couch. I think it took them by surprise to find we’d carried the contents of the Library up to the Study so we could welcome them home to their very own bedroom. As I got to know Adan better, I realized that that certainty of home feeling I’d taken for granted until now had never been familiar to Adan. They and their mom had constantly moved, and as they got older they were often under threat of being thrown out. It was then that I understood that Adan didn’t just want to date us or need a place to stay—Adan wanted and needed to be part of a family. And to have a home where they belonged. It felt pretty auspicious that we found each other when we did.
Doug and I weighed the pros and cons of buying our first house. Since we’d been renting a house for three years, we were already familiar with the kind of upkeep and care that a home required. And we’d reached a point in our lives—mid-thirties—where we were tired of moving. We looked forward to being able to inhabit a space long-term. I reached out to a real estate agent with glowing reviews, she got me in touch with a lender, and Adan and I sat around on our laptops comparing favorite dream houses on Zillow.
After providing the lender with our debt and income information, and after several anxious, nail-biting days, the lender let us know what our max loan amount would be for a pre-approved mortgage. Only two adults can co-sign on a home loan, so Doug and I signed on the dotted line.
With our max loan amount in mind, we scoured Zillow for favorites which fit our budget and our needs. Adan wanted a nice kitchen, Doug didn’t want to drive too far to work, Jack needed space to grow. Our real estate agent set up appointment times to meet us with keys, and we plotted the course for our first weekend looking in Little Rock and North Little Rock.
The four of us set out, everyone excited. It was great to have so many pairs of eyes noticing different aspects as I captained the vehicle and drove us on our way. Jack called out different businesses, Adan pointed out whether the nearby homes looked well-kept or worn down, and Doug noted the kinds of cars that our might-be neighbors had parked in the drives.
We arrived too early to House 1, while our real estate agent was running behind, so we had plenty of time to take a look around the outside. It didn’t feel like the nicest neighborhood. The outside walls of the house looked dirty, and the yard was overgrown. The porch had a steep drop off rather than a series of steps, and the immediate neighbor’s dog was a loud, nonstop barker. There was a screen door attached to the back door, but there was a second screen door propped against an outside wall. When our real estate agent arrived only to find that the key had not been left out for her as promised, she apologized profusely and suggested we could come back another time.
“It’s okay,” I told her, “I think we’re ready to cross this one off the list.” The house looked small and dirty, and the neighborhood didn’t feel safe. “Let’s take a look at the next one.”
The next neighborhood felt significantly nicer, which helped us relax. The front yard plants at House 2 were pretty and well cared for. Inside, we were all impressed with what we saw. The kitchen was updated, there were two living room areas each with fire places, and the full bath was newly renovated, too. I liked the cozy feel of the carpet and appreciated the neutral carpet and freshly painted colors. The dining room was also sizable, and the modestly vaulted ceilings and exposed beams made me smile. As my friend Ben had suggested, I checked under the kitchen sink, and found no evidence of mold. The biggest downside was that the bedrooms were noticeably small. Could larger shared spaces make up for the dinky bedrooms? And this house was would be farther away for Doug’s commute. Could the longer drive be worth it to him if he loved the home he was returning to each evening?
The doors to the outside of the house were tight in their frames and difficult to pry open, and the agent told us that may be an indication of foundation issues. Outside, the deck looked old but not rickety, and the yard was a decent size. The agent took us outside to show us the waves in the roof, which we would ask the seller to fix before purchasing if we made a bid, and the rust on the air conditioning unit, which might indicate a need for replacement in the next few years.
This was a home I could see my family inhabiting. I loved the large communal spaces, because in my family we spend most of our time together. We exercise, watch movies and tv shows, play video games and board games, and even work on art projects now and again. We definitely need gathering places where we can coexist. I loved the idea of two large living rooms, split by an equally large dining room, each of them assigned various purposes for our family and friends to gather. We left with a significantly positive impression. My family and I rated it 4 out of 5 stars.
The third neighborhood felt like a middle ground between the bad feeling of the first and the nice feeling of the second. It felt “okay,” and if the house was great inside, we’d probably go for it. The driveway was steep and felt perilous as we parked. We walked around the outside of House 3 while the agent unlocked the front, and the angles felt all wrong. The deck was built up too high and the roof sloped down too low. Inside, there were odd paint colors and ugly wallpapers. Some bathroom and kitchen updates had been done, but not nearly enough to give an overall impression of “new.” But the strangest aspect was the low doorways and ceilings. Doug, the tallest of our group, couldn’t clear one of the bedroom doors without having to stoop over. The agent pointed out cracks in the walls moving out from the top corners of the doorways which indicated foundation problems, and Jack brought me a random barbell and newspaper he had found. Were the owners even trying to sell? We all gave this house a resounding no and continued on.
Online, House 4 had been my top pick. I knew it was in a great neighborhood, and I loved that it had a high square footage, plus a sun room. It looked like a great bargain “on paper,” but I tried not to get my hopes up because it said “SOLD AS IS,” And I wanted to know what was wrong with it that the web pictures weren’t showing us. When we arrived, our first impressions were positive. The kitchen was big, the upstairs spaces felt clean and nice. The deck opened up onto a gorgeous view, and the sun room was spacious and could be used as an additional bedroom or family room.
Downstairs is where things got weird. The staircase was steep. The laundry area was cramped. And the storage spaces felt ill-placed, as if they’d been added as an afterthought. One bedroom had no door, with a custom-sized door frame. But we found the reason for the online warning when we entered the last downstairs bedroom: black mold, growing in a corner of the room. The agent advised that, sadly, there would be no way to know for sure if it had gotten into the walls and if so, how far it had spread. No amount of new light fixtures and new ceiling fans could make up for the fact that black mold was way too scary for us. We crossed this house off our list and set out for our last house of the day.
The very first thing we noticed about House 5 was how close it was to the highway, a definite plus for our commute-loathing family. We also immediately noticed how gorgeous and cultivated the front and back yard landscapes were, including the current owner’s vegetable garden. Going inside, the living room and dining room felt very small, but the kitchen was a decent size, and newly remodeled, which Adan adored. The upstairs bedrooms were not large, and bunched close together. But the upstairs bathroom was new and looked great.
This house was in a flood zone and had indications of foundation issues, so we would need to invest in flood insurance and look more closely at the records regarding what parts of the foundation had been corrected, the agent made sure to tell us.
But it was the downstairs area that wowed us. The master bedroom was gigantic, and took up half the basement. There was also a little sitting room cove, and a huge bathroom which included the sizable washer and dryer area. I’m not sure if it was the openness of the space or the “rich” feeling of the current owner’s belongings, but we were definitely impressed!
One final factor divided the group. In the basement closet was access to a crawl space which opened up into a dirt floor area with ancient-looking structures and some forgotten junk. The boys found this extra-appealing and immediately nick-named it “The Catacombs.” Adan and I, on the other hand, found it creepy, and didn’t feel so great about it. Overall we gave this house 4 of 5 stars, too.
In a single day my family and I had traveled through several homes, and indulged in the mental exercise of imagining ourselves living in each space. Houses 1, 3, and 4 each had issues significant enough to knock them off our list completely, while Houses 2 and 5 tied for first place, with Adan and I leaning toward the large communal spaces of House 2 and the boys rooting for The Catacombs of House 5. We waited to hear back from the agent with a more in-depth report on each, with still many more prospective homes to visit.
On another meet-up we viewed Houses 6 and 7. House 6 was a tiny, ugly home in an enviably great location. There was painted cement in the “finished” basement with pipes sticking out in awkward places, the kitchen was pathetic, and there was even a bedroom with “art” painted on the walls—not to my liking at all. House 7 was much better. It was big, with a lot of possibility. Not our top pick, but in our top three for sheer size.
I’ve always had this need to gather my family up in a big group whenever something momentous is on the horizon, and the prospect of buying my first house was no exception. When my parents and youngest sibling decided to visit for a long weekend, and Doug’s sister Jessi had been curious about all the house-hunting too, we found out that House 7 was hosting an open house that same weekend and we decided to show the whole family Houses 2, 5, and 7. Plus House 8 which was new to our list.
We went to House 8 first, and it was so, so gorgeous. Sadly, the fourth bedroom was hardly bigger than a closet, and it had the worst foundation issues we had seen in any place—not only were there cracks in the walls but in the tiles on the kitchen floor, too! It was “for sale by owner,” and our agent guessed the sellers didn’t have the money for a selling agent.
House 2 had lost some of its charm without the working air-conditioning of our first visit. I noticed the not-great parts of town we had to drive through to get there, and the bedrooms really were quite small. Also, it was only one and half bathrooms, and only one shower for all of us to share didn’t seem like the best idea. I left feeling less attached to my previous favorite, and willing to let go of the only ranch-style one-story house that we’d found. But House 5 looked even better with a second walk-through. I could see this little nook used for a writing space, which room might be best for each person, and I imagined ways to set up the living room so it wouldn’t feel so small. While close together, the bedrooms here were actually quite large. And for the boys, The Catacombs were just too cool to pass up. It was like aspects of a fort, a secret hideout, and a panic room in one.
My dad, however, noticed a sizable crack in the foundation on the outside of the house, and the agent agreed that it looked like it had moved much more recently than the ten years ago the sellers had mentioned. Sure enough, when the foundation guy was sent in later, he confirmed movement within the last two years, with potential costs to us of 5-10k or even up to 30k if or when it shifted further. We loved all the updates and even the layout of that house, but we didn’t want to start playing an endless, costly game of Fix-the-Foundation.
The last house of the day, House 7, should have been perfect. The rooms were big, the house was big—the largest we’d seen yet—and it was close to work for Doug and for me. It just didn’t spark anything for me. I’m a perfectionist, and I notice when small details are wrong. Whereas the remodeling and renovations of House 5 looked lovingly and painstakingly crafted, those of House 7 felt slapdash and rushed. It just seemed lazy. Why fix something up if you’re going to make visible mistakes? The cabinets in the kitchen had been painted but not well, and the inside of the cabinets were dirty. The back-splash was new but with errors. I just didn’t feel good about it, and a second walk-through didn’t change that.
It was frustrating to feel like we’d gotten to the end of our options without an obvious choice rising to the top. I had limited our search to four-bedroom homes, because while our roommate Jessica was ready to go her own way, Nelson expressed interest in continuing to live together, and Adan and Jack each needed a room, too. Doug was strict about the zip codes he considered too unsafe, and a few homes declined us a viewing because they already had bidders.
But reaching a dead end, I decided to open up the search to three-bedroom houses with anything listed as an office, sun room, or potential fourth room. In a pinch, even an unfinished basement or garage we might be able to finish eventually. I figured that would give us a lot more to look at, and I was not wrong. Suddenly, we were flooded with possibilities.
For a house just up the street from our current home, House 9, we took a break from our Girls Night to go check it out: Jessi, Adan, Fiona, and I. It wasn’t nearly as nice in person as it had looked online. But I realized my best approach would be to spend a day with our agent, viewing as many places as we could stand, and only take my family to the ones that stood out as the best picks.
House 10 felt too cramped, House 11 felt too dark, House 12 was pretty but too small for our family. House 13 had a really quirky layout with closets inside closets and two or three steps here and there. House 14 was a foreclosure and needed too much work. House 15 was completely unremarkable. I have learned in this process that I despise wood-paneled walls; my family needs a minimum of 1600 sq ft; pink or green tiled bathrooms, whatever era they are from, are so very ugly. I want normal doors in normal frames –no wild west saloons. I hate dark woods, dark rooms, weird wallpapers, and weird paint colors. And I’d really rather not deal with mold or flood zones.
Adan gets especially happy in houses with bay windows or wrap-around porches. Doug loves the ease of built-in shelving. Adan goes gaga over beautiful kitchens. I’d someday love a single story. My whole family is charmed by arches and vaulted ceilings and architecture that draws attention to its own beauty. And we have all admired various sun rooms. I will always prefer white trim and crown molding. And Adan wants to paint; but Doug and I don’t want to have to paint. Let it be optional, because whatever house under consideration should already have new paint in reassuring neutrals.
I have also learned that Zillow has a very broad understanding of “Little Rock and surrounding area.” When I search for homes in Little Rock I do not want to live in: Alexander, Austin, Bauxite, Beebe, Benton, Bryant, Cabot, Conway, Jacksonville, Lonoke, Mabelvale, Maumelle, Mayflower, Redfield, Shannon Hills, Sheridan, Sherwood, Vilonia, or Ward. If I’d been moving here from out of state I might have been rather irritated at a surprisingly long commute.
I’ve become familiar with house-selling jargon. Auction means you pay cash. New Home means you have to wait for it to be built, and new homes are also smaller than old homes for the same cost. Foreclosure means it probably needs too much work, even if it has only been foreclosed on for a short time. And Short Sale means something like, the seller is upside-down on the payment. Be careful not to get tricked into going to see a townhouse, duplex, or apartment. And know that if it’s priced too low, there’s a reason—it won’t be as nice as you want it to be. In the house buying and selling industry there seems to be no greater sin than an unreliable foundation. And please learn from my mistakes and know that while fishbowl shots are useful for showing a lot of the room in one picture, it greatly exaggerates the size of the room, too. Resign yourself to the fact that some homes just look great online and bad in-person, but don’t second-guess your judgement. And watch out for small, ugly houses in great neighborhoods.
On the day that my agent and I went just the two of us, we agreed on three favorites—we’ll call them Houses 16, 17, and 18—and we called my family to meet up with us and see them, too. House 16 was a huge house with big rooms and lots of square feet in a good neighborhood with a good yard, a formal dining room, a den, and more. It had the carpet I loved, a big, new kitchen for Adan, tons of bedroom space for everybody. Doug, Adan, and I gave it 4 out of 5 stars, and Jack gave it a beaming 4.8. If we had not seen the next two homes, we would have been happy buying this one.
But then we saw House 17. Where other houses were white, it was crystalline. Where other houses were newly updated, this house was perfect from conception. Perfectly placed lights, a freshness that felt sacred—you get the idea. My agent and I had thought it would be reasonable that the sellers could come down a little to meet the high end of our potential loan amount, but sadly, they’d already dropped significantly from an even higher price, and they couldn’t come down any further. This dream house, our 5 out of 5 star home, slipped back into the ether from whence it came, and we continued onward.
To the final house. When I walked in the front door it actually took my breath away. There before me was a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams straight from my dreams. The kitchen was small but beautiful. The dining room was neither large nor too small, but all connected and open. The half-bath for guests was freshly updated. Then we went out onto the deck, brand new, with homemade Adirondack style chairs from the same wood. This deck, I might add, was very like a wrap-around porch. The view opened onto a downward slope of mature trees, and yes, there was even a tire swing. Back inside there was a staircase down and a staircase up. Down were three bedrooms, all carpeted, all with sliding glass doors to the outside. Two bathrooms, both newly remodeled, one connected to the master suite. And a washer and dryer area, too.
And we decided that the master bedroom is large enough that Doug and Adan and I could all share it. Because all by itself at the top of the living room staircase is a little loft room with a sloped attic roof with its very own sliding glass door and tiny deck that screams Writing Room.
And that’s the house. Out of 5 stars, my son rated it “over 9,000!”
I have memorized addresses and square feet and build dates and prices like so many stats on baseball cards. I’ve seen 18 houses, and taken family back to all but 6 of them. (In hindsight, not the best way to house shop.) And we found the house. We made a bid, they countered, we countered, they accepted. We signed contracts. I compared prices for a home inspection and scheduled that. Now we’re working on the title company and closing. Paperwork processing can take 30 or 45 days just based on how long the bank has your stuff in the queue before they even take a look at it. And I’m not looking forward to giving notice to my landlord, who I’m certain was hoping we’d just stick around until he had a buyer lined up. But I am thrilled at the idea of moving in slowly. Buying shelving based on the new house measurements, setting it up, unpacking books and bringing back the empty boxes to slowly set up everything in its place, the polar opposite of the first move in together Doug and Jack and I shared. And maybe more than anything, it’s scary and exciting to imagine a life stretching years into the future for my family, anchored to a place we can call home.