Security Question Continued

We rented for five years when we moved to Sandy. It was a very cool house but added to my list of things I wanted in a house, such as a coat room. My kids would walk in the front door after school, drop book bags and coats right there and run to the bathroom and then go to their rooms. I wanted a coat room in the front of the house that was two steps from a bathroom and closer to their rooms than the front door.

For three years I drove around the valley looking for the perfect location. The criteria for perfect being, 1) affordable, 2)mountain views (we do live in Utah, you know) , 3)East sloping lot for walk-out basement so it would be light downstairs, and so the deck would be shaded in the afternoon for barbecues, 4) neighborhood and schools, not necessarily in that order. Three years after we moved to Utah I found it at 12069 Hidden Valley Club Drive. The Hidden Valley Country Club had sold lots only to members, so each house that was built looked unique, not a cookie cutter subdivision. I loved it. The house would face West and sloped to the East, so I would have my walk-out basement and shaded family barbecues on the deck. The Jensens, members of the Country Club, wanted $25,000 for the lot and I am ashamed to say I offered them 24,000. They smiled at each other and accepted. The house design odyssey and obsession began anew.

For the next year and a half, I drew and researched and thought and imagined, until I had the house I knew I could live in forever. We had been married 15 years and moved 10 times, but I knew I had a house for the long-term. I had somehow acquired my dream lot. Here are some of the thoughts I had regarding The Carey Home structure. George wanted it just to be a simple, square house, which would be economical to build. I studied where the foot traffic in the house would be and planned accordingly. I wanted big windows along the back of the house, for the gorgeous views that we were lucky enough to have, so kitchen, dining, living room and master bedroom were on the east of the house all with big windows. In the front were garage, den, stairs, closets, shower and tub, which don't require big windows. We wanted a 3-car garage this time, a walk-in pantry, huge kitchen and utility room, and master bathroom with walk-in closet. We added a den, a sauna, and I wanted a fireplace between living and dining rooms. With all these changes, our plan ended up being a few hundred square feet smaller than the Meridian house. After drawing the plans, which this time included heating and electrical plans, getting them approved by Sandy City and subcontracting the house myself, the final cost of the house was $97,000 plus $24,000 for the lot for a total of $119,000. We framed in for the fireplace, decks, sauna and large bathtub and added them later along with central air conditioning.

We had a row of five dormitory bedrooms along the east wall of the basement, a boys bathroom, a girls bathroom, a small library, a storage room and a family room. The family room dream never really happened, but recently some of our forward thinking has paid off. We plumbed the downstairs for an eventual kitchen, and our son and daughter-in-law came after graduation and made a beautiful three bedroom apartment and stayed there for two years. Now we have renters which brings in a little extra money. Eventually mom can live down there if she wants to.

We moved in just as school was starting in 1990. But not before the next door neighbor invited us over and asked if he could hire an architect to redraw our house. He said some very hurtful things like our house didn't belong in this subdivision, it belonged up in Oakley. He thought our simple house would bring down property values and he had gone to all the neighbors with 22 of them signing a petition to redesign our house. We declined and proceeded with our plans. Our house had met all criteria for the neighborhood covenants. However, I knew the house was plain and was deeply hurt. It eventually blew over and the neighbor moved to an upscale neighborhood a couple of years later.

Our home has been a work in progress. George has worked hard to put in the fireplace, bathtub, sauna, fences, landscaping. He has bought more property in the back so that our lot is now almost an acre, I think. Before his mission, Michael and George built two huge decks, one off the kitchen and one from the basement, which was a major undertaking. Michael came home from his mission and terraced our backyard and made a beautiful, huge stairway going down the hill.

I decorated the house from my heart. I like a more eclectic style than is ever in fashion. My kitchen cabinets are all white laminate, my floors are black and white checkered tile and marble and I don't have window coverings. I have had the same kitchen table that George's mother raised her family around, since we got married. George worked hard to strip the white paint off and refinish it. Now I have my grandmother's white kitchen cupboard that I am refinishing for my white kitchen. I have original art from June and my mom, and little wooden birds and animals that George's Dad made. I like oriental looking rugs and not a lot of knick-knacks or pictures.

Our big three-car garage was just kind of pasted on the front of the house making our house L-shaped. I would have had to make too many sacrifices to the floor plan to set it back into the house. This was one of Joel's points of contention. A few years later I had George make a fenced in courtyard with trellis extending from the front of the garage, which improved the looks of the house and made a hidden garden as a front entrance into the house. My garden is quite attractive. Janice, my friend loves my garden because she said it looks cared for, but natural and beautifully imperfect. I have between 60 and 70 varieties of daylilies that I have acquired throughout my garden. One year George had staked labels made for each of them that says their name, hybridizer and year, which adds to my enjoyment and the uniqueness of the garden. It has not been an easy garden. The soil is awful and so my strategy has been, if it stays alive, it was meant to be there. I have spent more money on dead plants than I care to add up.

This week we are getting our roof reshingled. Shingles blow off all the time and they tell me it wasn't shingled very well. But I almost hate to have them covered up. You see, George and the kids put the original shingles on, and I have a lasting image of my entire family working on the roof to finish our house. Everyone worked on the house. On the roof is a detail that I was somewhat stubborn about including in the house. Silly, but it is a cupola. I love cupolas. Mine is a country doctor with horse and carriage. It is a quaint and charming detail of the Carey Home.

Anyway, we love our home. We worked hard for it and it has worked hard for us. Lately there has been a new movement called the Not-So-Big-House movement. Sarah Susanka wrote a book with that title, about planning a house that fits your lifestyle and has just enough room for your needs. If feel that I intuitively followed this philosophy from the time this home was first conceived. I dreamed it, I planned it, I built it, I am paying for it, I raised my family in it, I decorated it, I change it frequently, I live hard in it. I love it. My bank has me answer some security questions to access my account. One of them is "What is your favorite vacation spot?" My answer is "Home."