Seeing A Diamond In The Rough

It was three years this July that I first laid eyes on our house. We had decided to move from the small town we were living in to be closer to the "city". We looked at houses in town and nothing even came close to appealing to my husband and I. Then I found this house online while browsing the local real estate. It seemed wonderful. The up close picture of the two story brick house looked promising. Plus it had 4 bedrooms and according to google map it looked to sit about 6 miles outside of town in the canyons. We sent it to our realtor and off we went.

This is what we found.




The weeds and native grasses had run of the place. There was no sidewalk up to the front door or any sort of walking paths around the yard. No people were living in this place, but there was no doubt that occupants of this property were lurking all around.


But I remember the hot sun beating down on me as I climbed the driveway thinking that this was home. Tears even came to my eyes at the thought of living in such a place. Later I would find out I was pregnant, which could have contributed to the emotions I was feeling, but no matter I loved the place just the same.



Ten years earlier my husband and I had found this little tucked away neighborhood as we were driving around killing time during a trip to the "big city". We both agreed we would love to live here some day and raise a family. It was a dream that we pushed aside as life got busy with the arrival of two little girls, jobs, and the paying of everyday expenses. Moving just wasn't a priority or a possibility for those ten years.



Moving into our dream house wasn't easy in many respects. Between a difficult pregnancy, stress filled jobs and living between homes an hour apart for 6 months I would be lying if I said all was a bed of roses. Even the fixing up of the place was crazy at times. I was for the most part out of commission, either because of my expanding middle or later because of the needs of my newborn. A newborn that was at one time labeled as a "failure to thrive".



We had our work cut out for us! The first project we would tackle would be making a sidewalk up to the front door. And of course if you own even a little bit of land we had to name the place...

I'll give you a hint as to what it was...
Any guesses? And tell me do you see the diamond in the rough or do you prefer your diamond already buffed and polished?

*This is a Blue Scaled quail also known as Cotton-Top Quail. When we moved in we had dozens of these guys running around the place. They would come with their fluffly little babies and at times I could look out my window and see dozens of these Cotton-Tops bobbing up and down the Canyon, filling the hills with white topped birds. So we named our place Cotton-Top Hills that spring and it has stuck.