No Such Thing As An Empty Nest

Now that my children have been out of the house for several years, I realize there's no such thing as an "empty nest."  They come back.  They leave but there's always the question of when or if they'll move in again.

Dead of Winter 2010  front of our farm house

My husband and I have one remaining parent, with whom we live.  It's my MIL. Add to that one very old dog and one dog aging rapidly, a huge piece of property we're inheriting and you have a very unempty nest indeed.  

When we were young(er), my parents retired to a lovely, maintenance-free, patio style home by a golf course.  They waited til Dad was 69 and finally willing to sell his small company in LA.  My mom was 64, had been his accountant for years.  She was ready. They followed a few golfing friends to what was then a brand new condo project by a golf course in smog-free, cooler temps.  Now that I have the never-ending- despite-the-fact-menopause-ended-6-years-ago hot flashes she had, I understand her desire for cooler temps.  I didn't at the time.

I had moved out at 19 to finish college.  I never moved back.  My brother, on the other hand, was in and out of the home we grew up in til Mom told him it was "time to be on your own" at the tender age of 25 or 26.  He stayed gone and my mother breathed a sigh of relief.  

We may or may not have what our parents have.  We are rehabbing the MIL's farm house into a two family dwelling.  It's turning our nicely but the renovation is costing us two loans despite my husband doing half the work and acting as general contractor.  We hope, one day, to rent the front of the house to vacationers and thereby generate income.  We live in a vacation area in the White Mountains of NH and we have summer, fall and winter visitors.  It sounds like a good plan.  The question is, will it work?  The other side of this is, if one of the boys want to move back here to live, they could rent it.  It would solve the economic problems they face as adults in a shrinking economy, create a family compound and everyone would benefit.  

I don't know what will happen.  I do know things are not as easy as we hope they will be and not as bad as we fear they will be.  I wish we had a million dollars set aside for retirement, but we do not.  I think most of us wish that and do not.  I don't even know if tried and true ways of generating income will continue to work.                                                       
                                                                                                                                                             Fall at our farm house, rear view

 This is our present plan.  It translates into a busy nest.  Hopefully, it will be our insurance policy.                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Truly An Empty Nest Part 1 Life Changes

 ORIGINALLY WRITTEN 11/29/09:

Hand built stone wall holding up our flagstone terrace

My family and I are in the final stages of moving from the house in which we raised our children to the large rambling home of my mother in law.  As you can imagine, it is a move fraught with emotion.

Boy's room

We had been talking of selling our home for a number of years, back at the top of the market in 2005.  We had bought a split level home on top of a mountain in 1998, moving in Thanksgiving weekend.  It had spectacular views, alot of potential, and not much else.   The boys were 11 and 10 and we'd lived in New Hampshire a year.  The house had promise and we made an acceptable offer.  We moved in Thanksgiving weekend.  We began renovations the following January.  We never looked back.

Master Bath created  circa 1999

As houses go, it was spacious, with large rooms and a fairly open floor plan.  It was built on a slab, something Californians understand but New Englanders do not.  The bank had a heck of a time finding comps for the appraisal.  We were getting a good deal and we believed we'd make money on it.  The views were too good, we had closet space galore and three bathrooms, soon to be four.   Our seller, the original owner, had installed an odd assortment of fixtures, cabinetry and bathroom appliances from various and sundry projects on which he'd worked.  The bathrooms had flesh toned fixtures,  the cabinetry was left over from a condo project on which he had additional pieces.  His electric work was definitely not up to code but the house was sound and he was a good guy who installed a new heating system and replaced the roof before we moved in. The negatives were an unfinished downstairs, mostly exposed concrete slab, a dingy, poorly designed kitchen, and the dirt road on which we lived..    The positives were the large rooms, the front porch we would turn into our living room, the 270 degree views and the national forest abutting our property.  We had privacy and a safe yard for the dogs.

Boys' Bathroom                                                                                                 Guest Bathroom

My husband and I are no strangers to moving.  This would be our eighth move.  It would be our sixth purchased home.  But this time was different.  This time I did not want to go.  This time, I felt my heart breaking.

Winter at our home