The Cabinet and the Previous Owner

Here's a picture of the cabinet we bought yesterday at Grandaddy's...

I'm pretty excited about it being the first piece of furniture for our house. Love it!

Another exciting thing that we discovered today is that the heart pine wood floor that is throughout the downstairs continues in the bathroom. And, for some reason there's subfloor and vinyl on top of it right now. Yay! That's one cost that we can avoid as we renovate.

So, the previous owner of our house. I wish I had a history of all the owners of our house. Perhaps as we live there longer, we'll learn about others who have lived there. But the most recent owner lost the home to foreclosure. And, as we began to ponder purchasing the home, I became curious to learn all I could of the previous owner. The first thing I learned is that the woman who owned the home owned it for 8 years. And she had married and divorced while living there. After finding out her name I learned that she was the owner of a graphic design business located in Hillsborough and that she didn't move too far away. I also learned from the neighbors that after having lived in the home for a while, she became a recluse. She also owned and added items to her home often...perhaps hoarding. From the look of the walls, she liked to put things on the wall...with tape, screws, nails, velcro and pushpins. Lots of pushpins. So many pushpins that the movie, "A Beautiful Mind" comes to mind as we pull pins out of the wall. Some of the things that remained on the wall were coat hooks and fortunes from fortune cookies.

Although I am excited to begin working on the home to make it ours, I am sad that someone who lived in the home longer than we've stayed anywhere lost it. Lost her home, marriage and perhaps her mind. I've certainly prayed for her as I've prayed over this house. I believe I'll continue to pray for her as we prepare the house for us to move in.