It's been years since I posted a "Way back Wednesday" but when Tina made a comment that she never saw pictures of our house in Maine it gave me the idea to blog about it. And that will mean that I'll have these pictures published in next year's blog book too.
So, here's my story from the past. Many years ago Karlo and I went on one of our first vacations together. We headed to Acadia National Park in Maine. I guess this was the start of our crazy, active, adventure vacations. When I booked the trip I had visions of 'laid back Maine' in my head. The thought of it was so relaxing. But of course, it was nothing like that. Instead it was non-stop hiking and biking and we were simply in Heaven. We loved everything about the place and that was it. Love at first sight. I picked up a real estate book and there started our 2 year non-stop hunt for real estate.
We spent the first year finding and purchasing the perfect piece of land. Now the dream was becoming a reality. We were going to build our post and beam on the top of a hill in Northport, Maine. We tirelessly worked on house plans and Karlo even built an amazing model of our proposed house. I was all ready to name it "The Majestic Moose" - had the URL reserved and everything.
The next year we hunted for a place to live while building this dream house and that's when we settled on a little place in Stockton Springs. It certainly wasn't our 'dream Maine home,' but it would be perfect to live temporarily while Karlo built the real house. Could our plans not be coming together any better? And that's when Karlo got the job offer of a lifetime that he simply could not refuse. Hello great job, goodbye moving to Maine. No regrets, that's for sure, but now we are stuck with a house that we no longer need.
We cleaned it all up and spent a few grueling weekends furnishing and decorating it. Lisa and her husband were a HUGE help and we have them to thank for the place looking as cute as it did. If anybody ever paints over the fabulous fish that Lisa painted in the bathroom I will be heart-broken. We named the house "Jessie's Landing" after Jessica, of course, and managed to rent it out seasonally for 2 years and that went OK. We had professional management and it was pretty painless for us. The best part was that when it was vacant we could go up and use it.
But then things went South and I don't even want to document all the bad stuff - and there's plenty of bad stuff. Bottom line is that we no longer rent it seasonly, and it no longer looks all cute like it used to. It's rented permanently and we no longer have the luxury of 'a vacation home,' but we have all the headaches of being land lords. The bills never end and we would love to be relieved of the burden some day. So let's just focus on how cute it used to be . . .
I'm just really happy that we were able to make some good memories there during the short amount of time that we actually used it. Jessica actually got to spend a weekend there and we even celebrated one of my birthdays all together at the house. One weekend of memories that I'll treasure forever.
3 comments:
best of luck with your current tenants. i can't see what they would want to change on the inside.
Oh my goodness, talk about way back!
I almost fell out of my chair when the first photo of me came up! I was not expecting that. Do you remember that the picture of us at the dining room table was on the morning of my 29th birthday and you made me special birthday pancakes??
It really was a cute house and I'm sorry it has caused you so much stress. We did have a couple of fun weekends in it, that's for sure.
It is pretty cool that we spent your birthday and mine at the house Lisa. sigh, those were the days . . . Much "funer" days. Yeah, I know it's not a real word.
Post a Comment