YOU GUYS!!!! Are you ready to finally meet our new house?! Oh man ALIVE does it feel good to say that. I can’t stop smiling, I’m a dang fool in love.
This post is exactly 171 days in the making.
171 days that I’ve been keeping this as vague a secret as possible in fear that someone would step in and buy it before we could.
171 days of complete life consumption.
171 days of laying awake at night dreaming of years worth of projects.
171 days is a long time.
But now I can share every single detail and I’m not going to stop. Ever.
Lets have a readers digest recap of our house situation, shall we? Its so crazy now to see how everything connected and since hind sight is 20/20 I’m going to show you all the crazy miracles.
Rewind back to Jan 2015 when I posted about my dream project. I found out that my favorite pioneer home was for sale and shared alllllll the feelings about it. Man I loved that house something fierce.
In the post I said “You know the saying If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, then it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be?” Well this house never came back. It was under contract when we looked at it and sold to the buyer very soon after. This was not our house.
Fast forward a year to Feb. 2016 when we started the process of building a new construction home. (Details on that process here) I designed the house myself, it was such a cool experience to see things coming together.
We had our lot, we had our bids, we had our plans, but it just didn’t feel right. It was like everything was working against us in impossible to overcome ways. One Saturday afternoon in June I was talking to Court about it. We had to decide by Monday what we were doing. I was sitting on the bed, and he was sitting on the floor. I looked at him and said, “Maybe we’re not supposed to build?” As soon as I allowed myself to see that as an option I had the most massive wave of confirmation rush over me. That was the answer. God knows that I’m a negotiator through and through and that if I was going to completely stop this process that I needed an answer that left no room for second guesses. This was not our house.
Buuttttttt, being the negotiator that I am, I tried to figure out why. Was it the actual house? Was it the lot? Was it the price? These questions swirled and swirled around in my head. I looked at new lots, I sketched new plans, I did everything I could to decipher what the possible solutions could be. Then one night that stopped. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning with the clearest thought in my mind. “Wait upon the Lord and trust in his goodness and timing”.
That left me with nothing to do, nothing to do but wait. So I stopped worrying about it.
On Sept. 1 my friend Meghan called to see if I had a phone number for an acquaintance. Meghan was listing a commercial property that needed just the right person to buy it. She said it was perfect for a cool vintage store, a coffee shop, or a restaurant. She gushed about amazing potential and I told her I’d see if I could track down a number. All of 5 minutes passed and I called her back and told her I wanted to see it. Not for any reason other than pure curiosity and a reason to get out of the house.
She gave me the address and when I pulled up this is what I saw:
The Santa Clara Merc.
Pssst, that painted faux rock treatment is 👌🏼.
She opened the door on the far right and we walked in to this:
The seller was originally planning on putting in a gallery and art studio (hence the wall situation)
It was old and awesome. I loved the giant shop windows and high ceilings. I agreed with her, this would be the perfect place for a cool shop. I remember telling her that I was sure we could find someone that would love it.
Then we walked through the gaping hole in the wall and I swear the world around me disappeared.
This weird laugh/cry noise came out of my mouth and I fell absolutely and completely in love. This wasn’t supposed to be a cool vintage store or a coffee shop.
This was my house.
THIS WAS MY HOUSE!!!
As I tried to take it all in, I could feel God giving me the ol’ nudge nudge saying “I told you.”
Now, normally I would instantly be worked into a frenzy but I felt so much peace about this. I didn’t need to get all worked up and stressed out forcing this to happen. It didn’t just fall into my lap, it was intentionally placed into my life.
I couldn’t believe that this building existed in Southern Utah! How did no one tell me about it?! Could they not see it for what it was?!
My thoughts immediately went to Court. I had to bring him here. STAT.
He was going to hate me.
The whole reason he hated the pioneer house was because it didn’t have reliable modern convinces like A/C. There was no way he was going to go for something that didn’t have electricity in half of it.
It seemed like it took FOR👏🏼EV👏🏼UR to get him over there (in reality it was the next day) I could not stop talking about it, and he could not stop telling me that I was crazy. And not in a “awwww, you’re so cute and a little cray cray” way, in a “Mandi, these nice people are here to take you away because you are out of your mind” way.
I made sure that my MIL came along cause she gets me and I knew I would need someone on my team. Court walked in and his exact word were “No way, this is a piece of crap!” Ok so he wasn’t in love with it, I’ll be the first to admit that there are a lot of very obvious negatives. But his hard candy shell cracked a little when he walked into the brick room. He won’t admit it, but I think in that moment (for at least 3 seconds) he was a little glad he had a certifiably crazy wife.
Here’s a few pics with people in them for scale.
Have you made it this far?! Lets pause our story here and I’ll pick up tomorrow! We’ve got to pace ourselves cause this is 171 days worth of stories, problems, miracles, and happy dances!
Tell me how you’re feeling. ARE YOU DYING?!!?!?!? Isn’t this SO MUCH BETTER than a new house?! Who wants to get a Merc tattoo with me?
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via Mandi at Our New House…MEET THE MERC!
