We are Bradley and Tara Hall, we have two beautiful girls, Mallory and Avery. We have been married for 13 wonderful years and are trying to raise a healthy, happy family while trying to restore our 1930's craftsman style bungalow.
A year after we were married we had enough of the apartment life and decided to buy a house. Like most couples we bought a typicial cookie cutter home in a newer neighborhood with not many trees and not much yard. This worked just fine for us for awhile. When Mal came along we wanted to get out more and this was not going to work for us. The backyard was small and sloped and didn't have any shade from the hot Texas sun. So we started looking at places with lots of big trees and a big backyard. Like lots of people we love watching HGTV and home improvement shows and thought it would be neat to buy an old house and fix it up.
So in early spring (2005) we started looking in towns east of Dallas. My parents live in Terrell, so on the way to see them we would drive down this one particular street and thought how nice it would be to live on a street like this. Yes, we were one those couples that drive down the street really slow, looking at every charming house on the block, just taking it all in....we call them "DREAMERS"! So we asked our realtor to look for homes in the Terrell area. Well, several weeks later our realtor called us about this two bedroom house that was on Elm Drive...what do you know,the very street we wanted to live on. So we drove by this house to take a quick look at it. At first we didn't like it at all, I made the comment "that's the ugliest house on the street and I don't like that color and the yard is a mess". But we gave it a second chance, seeing the potential(big if), and setup a time to take a real look at it. I don't think anything could have prepared us for what we encountered when we went in the house.
"Oh my Gosh" it was a mess! The owner living in this house was not clean at all and she had 500 dogs(5 or 6)and they were big and they owned the place. There were urine stains on all the floors, and oh the smell, it smelt horrible. Tara had to cover her face while we walked through this place it was so bad. There was mud everywhere from the dogs coming and going, roachs and waterbugs; in the backyard there were dead baby possums from the "Killer Dogs". Mind you we live in a new, clean, neat home at this time while looking at this disaster unfold before our eyes, did I mention that we live in a really clean home. As we walked through the house we had to remind ourselves to look past the clutter and the smell and look at the layout and bones of the place while trying to visualize what could be and that we could make it ours and be happy here.
Well we thought about it for several weeks and decided it was the place for us, that we could turn this sad, rundown house into a home...something the neighbors would be proud to live next to. The neighbors' homes are very charming with lots of character...but this one, oh it had character all right! Before we made an offer I asked Tara, "are you sure you want to do this, I don't want to make this move if it's going to tear us apart and make us regret our decision", I was having cold feet about what we were about to take on, and she reassured me that we were making the right move, so we put a offer on the house the next day and 6 weeks later it was ours.
Everyone thinks we have lost our mind...and we have, but that's ok. We love our home(not all the time) but most the time and don't regret ever moving. We are learning to balance raising our beautiful girls, supporting each other and restoring a house that needs lots of attention...it can be tricky at times but wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
I hope our blog inspires others to live life to the fullest and enjoy every second with the ones you love and make your house a home.
