The Calk Family: Being Thankful

I am thankful to live in the country and have space around me!

When I was in elementary school, I lived in a city, close to everything. I remember my parents buying their land out in Azle. I just thought it was a cool place to visit and look for animal bones and fossils. Then we started building a house, which I thought was neat too. I remember when we would drive from one house to another during the construction and then when we moved. It felt like it was so far from everything and everyone. Going to K-Mart was the highlight of my young life! Haha!

As I got older and started driving, it just became a part of life that we were so far from the 'city'. I wanted to live in the city, but I always knew that I would want land in the future. Bonham and I lived in an apartment when we were first married, then we bought a house that was basically within arm's reach of our neighbor's house. Our next house was on a regular lot and had a little more space, but still never the privacy that you get when you are in the country.

Three years ago, we moved into a rental property that my parents own (technically next door to them). Since we were moving back to the DFW area from Abilene, our plan was to live here for a year or two and then buy another house closer to the city. This house is smaller then the houses that we had lived in and we expected to feel cramped. The funny thing is that we have been extremely comfortable here. And even though there isn't as much space inside, we have so much space outside that it feels bigger. Does that make sense? Jayna calls this her perfect house! This by far isn't my dream house, but it works. It works well.

The good things about renting from my parents is that they will never sell the property out from under us, they let us do improvements when we want, they let us have animals, they let Bonham use their zero-turn mower, and when it's paid off our rent will go WAY down! :) And eventually (a long time from now), we will inherit this house.

Bonham's biggest complaint about living here has been that we don't have a master bathroom. My biggest complaint is that we don't have a dining room (and I wish we had a master bathroom too). My mom offered to add a master bathroom and I told her that it wasn't worth the extra expense for one more bathroom.

Currently, the house is about 1600-1700 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, and a living room. Since my mom had offered to add a bathroom, I asked if they would be willing to add a new master bedroom with a master bath and then I could convert the existing master bedroom into a dining room. My parents quickly agreed! So as we were talking about the plans, I asked if we could expand it to 2 extra bedrooms and the master bath. Bonham was afraid that we would look greedy, but my reasoning was that if we were going to do an addition, we should do it to where we don't have any regrets after it's all done. If a few years down the road we wished we had extra space, it would be too bad. The whole roof has to come off, so it's not an easy project that can be re-done.

As we were drawing up the plans, my dad said, "let's go ahead and add another bedroom and bathroom." So now we are adding 3 bedrooms and 2 bathroom (about 1,000 square feet). We will convert Jayna's existing bedroom to a den for the kids' computer, t.v., and toys. I am so excited about the addition and can't wait for it to get started! I will definitely post pictures of the progress!

It's great to have the land around us to even have the option of adding on. I am so thankful to live in the country!

Here are some pictures of our country living....