From Trash To Treasure
Transforming an Old Fixer-Upper into a Charming Haven
“Babe, it’s on 4.84 acres!!” I said to my husband. I could feel the excitement and hope bubbling up inside me from my ankles. I scanned the Zillow listing as fast as my fingers could swipe, mentally checking all the boxes this property would check off for us. I instantly knew this was our house, the one we’ve been searching for. I needed this to be our home.
When we sold our ranch style home of over 3,000 square feet on 0.5 acres in December of 2023 we learned what we did NOT want in our next house. We did not want a long home. Our last home was 3,313 square feet all single story, it legit stretched on forever. I think the main ridge of our roof was over 80 ft. When my son was playing in his bedroom at the end of the hallway corridor I would have to shout extremely loud from the kitchen for him to barely hear me. This was something we didn’t anticipate was going to be a dislike of this house. Everyone always talks about wanting more house and higher square footage…but we learned rather quickly 3k square feet was twice as much as what we needed. This house was positioned on a busy county road that got busier during the time we owned the home when a new agricultural plant went in miles up the road. This was the worst case scenario for any homeowner. Not only do we feel we were exposed to a higher toxic load of chemicals blowing into our back yard, but we had to listen to engine breaks and watch exhaust fumes get sucked into the front of our house every time a semi-truck drove by. My family was constantly dealing with illness, allergies, and poor sleep. If I had to hang my hat on the main reason why we decided to sell our last place I would say: agriculture pollution and road noise. This was not something even remotely on our radar of things to consider before buying a house This place taught us a whole heap of life lessons.
It can be a huge risk becoming a home owner. Many say that owning a home provides you equity and is seen as an appreciating debt. Our society even elevates home ownership as a right of passage to adulting. In some areas it can even be more affordable to pay a mortgage note over a rent payment. However, I feel we lived one of those unique scenarios where owning a home can be much riskier and cost you more in the end. Our equity certainly didn’t have the opportunity to truly grow in the two years we lived there. My husband and I own a catastrophe insurance adjuster business and in Fall of 2023 we were deployed to Florida working Hurricane Idalia. We were staying in a charming little airbnb off the Steinhatchee river for two months and when the work ran out we were actually disheartened thinking about returning home. My husband and I knew then it was time to list that house. We referred to this little airbnb as “our Florida house” and compared how we felt there in contrast to our “Texas house”. Our house was not a haven and it barely felt like home, we were living a real nightmare and wanted out from under it.
Texas house also sat next to a corner lot that we also owned that would flood and not drain properly attracting mosquitoes that would prevent me from going outdoors. We had this large open area of land but we couldn’t build any structures on it due to the flood zone and couldn’t even plant a garden that would be susceptible to wash out. We craved more functional land, more structures, sheds and place we could set up for chickens. When we first bought this house we felt we were getting an added bonus of 13 pecan trees on the property. We got a pecan roller and ordered a pricey industrial sheller to collect pecans to sell them. We were delusional to think we’d have thousands of yummy pecans to bag up and sell the following October and have a good chunk of cash for Christmas. I spent one afternoon listening to an audiobook and rolling an entire metal trashcan full of pecans. I went to go crack one open in my hand and the black mold crumbly contents spilled into my hand. And that was the day my husband and I learned everything Google had to offer about pecan weevils.
We found that every tree on the property was invested with weevils . These bugs would borrow tiny holes in the shell, eat the nut and leave rotten hollow useless pecans to flood our back yard. The rotten nuts couldn’t even be used for compost material because the shells wouldn’t break down timely. Worthless waste, everywhere!!! The remaining pecans that weren’t ran sacked by weevils; my dogs would sniff out and eat, followed by episodes of vomiting due to the aflatoxins and high fat content. The large shady trees near our driveway that we once thought would be ideal for steamy Texas summers to keep our vehicles cooler were now covered with pecan tree sap that was deteriorating our clear coat and a bitch to wash off.
So there’s the back story. This essay would not feel as wholesome if I didn't paint the picture of me and my family in our prior house. Picture me being a slave to my spin mop constantly trying to clean the original 60’s floors. I’m a registered nurse and licensed clean freak on the regular but the dust and pollution blowing into my house made me crazed trying to stay ahead of whatever was making my family ill. I’m sure the neighbors had their interesting opinions of us as you would see my husband cursing and flipping off the pecan trees elbow deep in suds scrubbing his truck hood. And then you have my three year old son, sneezing with watery eyes hollering for me across the house because the dog is throwing up rotten nuts again. We were all going nuts!!! We were over it. So over it, we were willing to break even on this house. We moved into a 375 square foot camper till we could figure out where we wanted to move. We sold 1/3rd of our belongings, stuck 1/3rd in storage and fit what we could in our camper so we could start completely over.
And then we saw the Zillow listing of a modified a-frame 4 bedroom 2 bath 1,736 square foot home on 4.84 acres with a barn, a gambrel shed, and a chicken coop. When we stepped foot on our land when it was officially ours…it did not feel real. When we moved the camper onto the land and slept in the camper while cleaning and repairing the inside the first few weeks…it did not feel real. When we moved into the downstairs and started sleeping in the home waiting for our appliances to deliver…It did not feel real. When we slept in the new place about a month, finally had our fridge delivered, had all of our belongings out of storage and was washing my clothes upstairs instead of the laundromat…it still did not feel real.
We closed on our new home which we affectionately call, Fox House on 12/19/24. The last night we slept at the weevil wasteland house was 12/19/2023. So technically we lived one full year in our bumper pull camper on the road. And on February 22nd 2025, I had the first moment where owning this land truly felt real to me. It was this date because this was when I took these pictures of our chicken coop. I’m standing in the back pasture behind the house. I’m embarrassed to say it was the first time I had actually walked the entire property line and explored the inside of the chicken coop. It was a beautiful sunny day and I stumbled upon some dried bee balm that I picked to stage in a vase on my kitchen island. There was this moment of clarity I felt when I snapped this picture of the grove of live oaks around the back side of our chicken coop. I stared down at this picture on my phone in awe for a moment. The sky looked so blue, the clouds felt so cozy and then I glanced up from my phone and the sky still looked so blue and the clouds felt even more cozy. This belonged to me. This grove of trees that will one day shade my chickens from the daunting Texas sun. This beautiful, structurally sound chicken coop belongs to me. I halfway feel undeserving of this coop. I’ve never owned a chicken in my life and know only what YouTube has taught me in the last month. To be honest, on the spectrum of city girl and country girl I regretfully have landed on the city side more. Nonetheless, this coop belongs to me. City girl and all. This dirt belongs to me. As long as we pay our property taxes which comes out to $186/month. In contrast, we were paying $394 dollars a month in property taxes for our 0.5 acres at our last place. I still don’t logically understand how I can pay so much less for so much more. We now have nearly 5 acres of land. We set out in our camper over a year ago on a search for, Less house, More Land. And we found it. It finally feels real.
Substack: I feel better here.
Substack is a free social media app that I’ve been using to write. I have recently been blogging about our home reno of fox house. It’s also served as a way to stay in touch with my community that I initially grew on Instagram. Substack still has likes, and algorithms and unhealthy envy snaking through this platform too but the difference for me comes down to autonomy and how this platforms make me feel regularly. I feel better here. Substack could disappear tomorrow and I would still own my email list and have a way to reach each of you. If Instagram disappeared, I would instantly lose sweet friendships that I’ve made solely on the app and have no outside way to communicate. I don’t like that. I also don’t like how my consuming habits naturally increases on Instagram. On the gram, I experience an increase in consuming content not creating it. I also consume more through swipe up links of things I didn’t know I needed 5 minutes ago. Substack and your email inbox is where I play now. I’m protective of my own email inbox so know that my intentions are always to be respectful of the space I take up in yours. I don’t write just to check off a weekly to do list of sending out a consistent essay. I write because I’m passionate about writing.
I hope when you see my name in your email or the notification populates on your banner from your Substack app… I hope you feel warmth, and goodness and a buzz of excitement. If you ever don’t feel those things, please unsubscribe as we aren’t mutually serving each other. And that’s okay. I hope if you can’t immediately read my essays, posts and publications; may you leave it marked as unread or let your notification linger to remind you to circle back. I hope my writing becomes a special little treat for you to visit…a safe place to nestle amongst sentences. I hope it’s a reminder for you to take the deepest breath you’ve taken all day.
Before you go, do you mind if we take a breath together?
Breathe in…2…3.
Breathe out gently…2…3.
Today’s coffee.
The Substack apps gives you the ability to subscribe to receive my letters to your email inbox at no cost to either of us. I have the option to set some of my essays behind a pay wall where you would be a paid subscriber monthly. I would get a large portion and Substack gets a small portion. I currently chose for all of my essays to be completely free. The most valuable way you can support me is by reading. Yes, your time is the most valuable thing for me. Other ways you can support me is by leaving a comment, sharing my publication with someone you feel would enjoy reading it or by sending me $4.47 cents via Venmo. This is the approximate cost of my coffee that I make for myself at home. I use mold free decaf grounds, cream, brown sugar, cardamom, a scoop of colostrum and sometimes cinnamon. If you ever feel the desire to extend extra appreciation in this way without the commitment of a repeating subscription through the app, you are covering my cost of my morning coffee.
Here’s the cup that fueled today’s essay.
