Going over the line
When Mark bought the land this house is on, this was way out in the boonies. The neighborhood consisted of four houses, a dirt road, and an apple orchard. Seventeen years later, golf course lawns spread wide around enormous doll houses. All but a few of the apple trees are long gone. In just the time I’ve been here, since 2003, a house has gone in below us and another above us, and there’s massive development going on down the street. Two new roads were put in off of that street in the past year. Two new roads. I’ve shied away from going up them and finding out just how many more houses have gone/are going up.
Our house sits on two and a quarter acres of woods. The woods are a godsend. While the leaves are on the trees, the view of the neighborhood below us is blocked out. We have privacy (though not as much as we had just a couple years ago) and shade, and we don’t have to, like most of our neighbors, spend the weekend taking care of a sprawling lawn (or spend the money to have someone else do it).
The roads are more crowded. Everything is more crowded. Some people bring certain attitudes with them when they move to Asheville, into their big houses with their big lawns and their SUVs, or maybe they catch the environmental consciousness bug going around here, in which case it’s their hybrid SUVs. And their attitudes….
We love the local restaurants, the local clubs, we love Greenlife and the convenience of being near everything. We love the friends we have here. We have a lot of memories here.
But we are so. moving. out. Before we get to the point where we hate it here.
Monday we’re closing on a property in Tennessee—seventeen acres of land, wooded, with road beds already in place. There’s a spot up there that’s perfect for a cabin. We can’t build that cabin right now; we need to sell the Asheville house, then we need to save up to have the cabin built in stages, paying cash as we go. But we’re moving now (well, not now now—more like November now), so that that the Asheville house won’t smell like dog when we put it on the market next year. So that we don’t have to clean up every crumb and speck—constantly—while the house is on the market. So that I don’t have to interrupt my workday to throw the dog in the car and go away while people come to look at the house.
So that Mark can be a little less stressed about selling the house. Less stressed is a good thing.
So that we can feel like yes, yes we are moving forward with the plan we hatched in 2004: smaller house, bigger land.
There’s a trailer on the Tennessee property. It’s a step down from a two-story, three-bedroom house; it’s just a singlewide. But it’ll allow us to live right there on our land, just down the hill from where our cabin will go, just down the road from farms and produce stands and the Cherokee National Forest.
And omg it’s all flat if you leave the property from the front. Flat flat flat flat flat. Oh sure, there are hills—to you they’re hills, but pfft. Nothing compared to Joy Kill Hills #1 and #2. Or The Hill That Never Ends. Or that one I haven’t come up with a name for yet. I’m stoked about getting to ride my bike to the produce stands and the hardware store and whatever else there is in the area. It’s going to be so much fun exploring a new place!
So. Who wants to buy a three-bedroom home in trendy, growing Asheville, NC? ;-)
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