Walking Into Your Home When It’s Filled With Someone Else’s Stuff
A French Farmhouse & Co-stewardship Post
On the last day of 2020, we purchased a little old farmhouse in France with our nearest and dearest friends. The previous owners lived in England and used the property as a vacation getaway. Due to travel restrictions during the pandemic, they were unable to clear out the residence and outbuildings before the sale closed. They didn’t mind. In fact, it seemed to come as a bit of a relief for them, not to mention a slight increase in the purchase total, which included a fee for some of their more notable furnishings and accessories. Before and after completing the sale, our little group of buyers (5 adults, 4 children) invited the sellers to come and collect whatever they wanted, but they politely declined the offers. I suspect that over time the spot had lost its luster in their lives, and that they were not reluctant to part ways with it or the items it contained.
This was my first-ever real estate transaction, and we committed to it sight-unseen. The process took half a year, and then were unable to visit for an additional six months until travel limitations eased. This meant that upon our very first visit to our new home we entered into someone else’s world as though it’d been frozen in time. From their dirty laundry in the wicker hamper to the half-eaten contents of the pantry and breadbox, we discovered everything truly as-is.
There were children’s drawings stacked on the bookshelf, a jar of coins and keys near the door and logs gathered by the fireplace. A bucket sat beneath hanging trench coats and umbrellas to catch raindrops that had long since evaporated. In the bathroom there was toilet paper on the roll, and towels dangled questionably near an unplugged space heater overlooking the tiled vanity that held a cracked, thinning bar of soap .
My husband’s wonderful step-sister, Hannah, stayed with us for those first few days, and she arrived at the farmhouse several hours before we did. (It felt meaningful for us to come home to a guest who was already there, as the entire point of this place is to share it.) When we pulled up after a long day of travel, she swiftly guided our four year old to the bathroom, and indicated the least bumpy route for our rolling suitcases. Her face immediately conveyed everything we needed to know before we explored the property ourselves: the place needed A LOT of work.
We knew this. Other than the bats in the cellar and the something crawling around in the wall over the bed Hannah was brave enough to use, there were no surprises for us. Everything was almost exactly as we’d surmised. Still, there was no way to prepare my heart for the feeling I got upon entering what was officially and legally my home (a first for me at 40 years old,) while it was set up for the evolving world of another family. Even if it was only their vacation getaway, they’d used it for decades. We never met them in person, yet they were everywhere.
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