There’s a reason they say “Home for sale.” I could say “House for sale,” and I suppose for some, that’s exactly what they would put. But in our case it’s a home. Because a house is a structure, a building, an impersonal collection of materials that you hope might hold up well over time. A home is much more. A state of mind, a place in the heart, an extension of yourself, and all of your hopes and dreams.
We are selling a home.
You won’t see it from the road. Not in the summertime. It slowly disappears from view as the trees fill in, becoming once again our hideaway in the woods. It’s close to Rt. 19, to all of Cranberry, but it feels more like being nestled near a ski resort, with 40 or so windows open to the day’s drama outside. In snowfall it is stunning, our own chalet. With a driveway that drops quickly from the road, so that the first comment we often hear is, “how do you keep that clean in the winter?” But it’s deceiving…a quick 15 minutes with a good snow blower and it’s clean to the blacktop again and away we go. I love this part of the house…the feeling that we are somehow brave against nature, when the truth is so much easier, and I zip out in my little front wheel drive hatchback while others are stranded.
On cool nights, home is where we sit by the fire pit, piles of smores at the ready, listening to the woods chirp and hum. On hot days we stay in the coolness of the shade of dozens of oaks, long since mature.
After work, home is where the boys and I play dodge ball in the downstairs room, long enough to get a good throw, wide enough for a good dive, just far enough from the family room to keep the peace. This is the coziest part of home, where we gather for movies and play.
The kitchen, the heart of our home, is where we gather—inevitably—with guests and family. Because it’s steps from the great room, with its 20’ ceilings, the endless windows, a fire and room to sit and talk and eat. At Christmas we delight in finding the biggest tree we can, knowing it will still be miles from the ceiling.
The kitchen was a labor of love, and we decided to just go for it and make it custom top to bottom, so we tore it down to the studs, brought in a custom cabinet builder and added everything we always said we wanted. We could not be happier with the outcome.
And because we knew, most of all, that home is where we work, we wanted a separate space, something large and open and dedicated, where we could bring people to meet, and have lots of room to breathe. We did not want just ‘a space’, so we transformed an empty, unheated, unfinished room into our dream space, with teak floors, its own heating and cooling, a library ladder to reach the loft, and lighting to keep it bright, although with yet more windows they often go unused.
We carpeted top to bottom, we added lights, ceiling fans, a new driveway, a new motor for the furnace, and on and on until we turned this house into a home.
And now it’s time to move on. To let someone else take our work and make it their own.Turn what they see as a house into their own home.
It’s a good home. It will welcome them like it welcomed us.
