The Reason Why

If you reading this, then you know that Ty and I have made the decision for him to spend a year or so in Iraq as a private contractor through the U.S. Government working as a truck driver, hauling petroleum fuel and supplies for our military. The reason why would be because we are in dire need of a bigger home. We sort of outgrew our present home about five years ago. A three bedroom, one bath 14x70 mobile home just doesn't cut it with four kids. Not at all. Plus, we want a dog. Can you blame us?

So, as Ty and I were praying for the Lord to guide our path in where He'd have us go (long before the Iraq decision was ever even thought of), I happened to be driving down the road one day with Sage and saw a cape cod sitting along the road in Marion. It was a model that had been sitting there for awhile and I often drove by it thinking to myself how much I loved the colors and the looks of the outside, I absolutely adore cape cods, and I wondered what the inside was like. Without giving it much thought one day coming back from Chambersburg, Sage and I popped in to take a tour of this house just for the heck of it.

Did you ever spend a long time looking for something in particular but just can't seem to find it? Sure you find plenty of things that are similar and attract you, but it just doesn't fit that exact image you've had in your head for so long or it's missing some intricate little detail that seems to make it whole. Sometimes I think we even look for things that we're not even sure of but we know it the minute we see it. That's it. That's the one. That's mine.

Well, that's exactly what happened to me the day Sage and I walked into what I like to call "my" home. This is it. This is the one. This is mine. I loved everything about it from the outside to the inside. I loved the colors on the walls, I loved the color of the carpet, I loved the way the house was laid off. It was perfect. It was more than perfect. It was mine.

It was mine so much that I went home and insisted that Ty come along in the morning to check it out. And that's exactly what we did. Ty and I went inside, Ty looked around, smiled at me and said, "This is it, baby, this is our house."

We decided the ONLY part we would change in this entire house would be the triangle overhang above the front door. That will be changed into a third dormer, centered between the other two that you see across the roof.

Now what? Well, first we buy land, then we pay someone to come in and lay the foundation which is going to be quite a large basement (and if we buy a piece of ground that is sloped, we would like to make it a garage plus entertainment area), and then Schaff's builds our home. You can call it a modular home, you can call it a prefabricated home, heck, I don't care what you call it as long as you call it "ours". We felt so surely about it, we went inside and talked with the sales manager to find out the procedures that needed to be done and we brought along the tape measure and measured out the second floor. What I didn't tell you is that my favorite part is the second floor.

Why? It's unfinished...and that means I get to play. And play I did. I had a ton of fun drawing up the blueprints for the top that we will build ourselves into four bedrooms and two full baths for the kids on top of the three bedrooms downstairs and two full baths.

But enough about that. I would like to take you on a tour of "our" house as best I can with the pictures I have. I apologize for some of the blurry photos because the battery in our camera wasn't charged that day as well as it should've been and the lighting was dim. I will put a small description at the bottom of each photo to kind of help you understand the way it is laid off.

This is the view to your right when you first walk in the door. Directly inside the door is a good-sized foyer which I will show you in a bit. This is the dining room and you can see that it opens up into the large kitchen.

This is the kitchen, breakfast nook included. To the right is the dining room, to the left is the great room and off to the right in the back of the photo is the master bedroom with full walk-in closet and a master bathroom as well.
This is what you can see of the master bathroom when looking in the doorway. To the right are double sinks and you can see the jacuzzi tub. To the left is a stand up/sit down shower (yes, it is big enough and has places for you to sit as well), the toilet and the linen closet.
Now this is to the left of the kitchen. This is the great room. One of my favorites. I love the opening in the wall above the kitchen sink overlooking the great room. Plus it has two sliding doors to the outside and a fireplace that is to die for.
This is the fireplace that is to die for. I love this part of the house. Behind me is where the sliding doors are that will eventually open up to a large deck.

This is a look at the foyer and front door. To the left is the kitchen, dining room, great room, master bed/bath and to the right you can see part of the staircase and I'm standing in the living room taking the picture.

This is the staircase leading to the second floor.

This is a view of the living room from the kitchen area.

This is a view of the two bedrooms down stairs that the kids will share until we have the upstairs finished. The bedrooms are twice the size of the ones they are sharing now. Behind the wall on the left is a door that leads into the basement. To the right of the photo you see a hallway that leads to a full bathroom on your right and then there is a mud room/laundry room with a side door leading outside.

This is the view of the unfinished upstairs that you see once you come up the steps and walk around.

This is a view of the upstairs from the opposite end looking at where the staircase is. To the left of the staircase in this picture will be two large walk-in closets, to the right will be a large storage closet and the hallway. On the other side of the doors will be one bedroom and a full bath. On this side of the stairs will be two more bedrooms and a full bath. To the right of the photo you can see sunlight on the floor -- that leads into the other part of the second floor which will be the fourth bedroom upstairs. It is directly above the great room.

This was the best view I could get overall of the fourth bedroom upstairs. There will actually be a small hallway that leads into this bedroom, this will be Sage's bedroom. All the bedrooms will have walk-in closets and all have dormers in them except for Sage's, but his is the coolest in my opinion because it's off in another part all to itself.

This is a picture at the top of the stairs where Zoe's bedroom will be and you can see how large the dormers are. Man, I wish I had one of them when I was a kid. I think Ty and I are getting jipped in the bedroom department of the house ;)

Last, but not least, this is simply the view coming down the stairs where you can see the great room and part of the kitchen.

These plans have been in the making for a while (the house and the decision to go to Iraq) but we didn't tell anyone because we were simply praying about it and making sure it was what we felt was the Lord's will for our lives. Please keep us in your prayers during this time. It has been a tremendous sacrifice on our part. When you are married to your absolute best friend it feels as if half of you has been ripped off and now lives halfway across the world. And thank you for taking "the tour" of the future Hepfer home! The blogs after this will not be this long...I PROMISE!!!!