The Stauffer Family officially owns a home as of November 13th, 2009! Many people have asked about how we bought the house, so here’s the whole story.

Earlier this year, Rachel and I had been thinking about moving out of our townhome in Briargate and buying a house. We had signed a lease that wouldn’t expire until March of 2010, so we figured we’d have plenty of time to look around and see what was available. So I called my Realtor, Ray Brown, and told him “let’s just look around and see what’s out there. We’re not in the market to buy—we just want to know if there are any homes in our price range.” So he put an electronic search in place that emailed me the daily listings of homes that were within our price range.

That lasted for a few weeks, and we discussed some options (mostly short sales and foreclosures), until Rachel and I found out that she was pregnant with our third child. This was very exciting, but it also stressed Rachel a lot, to be thinking of preparing for a new baby, and moving at the same time. So we called Ray and told him to cancel the house search. We would just wait until next year.

Fast forward to early October. The week before the baby was due, we dropped off our girls at the Grandparents’ for the weekend, so we could focus on cleaning up the house and fixing all the “little things” that was driving our nesting mama crazy. We did some touch-up paint in the girls’ room, had the carpets cleaned, organized the garage and basically gave the house a thorough cleaning from top to bottom. The weekend was very productive, and we got almost everything done, so we went out to dinner on Sunday night (which was the day before the baby was due), to celebrate. We had a good time out, and after dinner, dropped by Home Depot to pick up a few small things. When we pulled up to the townhome, we heard several smoke alarms going off in a loud, erratic fashion. As we got out of the car, I recall joking “That’s an awfully annoying sound. I sure hope it’s not coming from our place.” What I saw as I opened the front door shocked me—it was coming from our place. All the lights were off, all the smoke alarms were sounding, and there was water everywhere. Water was gushing through the ceiling from the top floor. The kitchen table, where I had two laptops sitting, was swimming in water. The globe lights in the ceiling were completely filled with water, just like fish bowls. Paint was bubbling, the ceiling was falling out in pieces, and our feet were sloshing and splashing with each step.

I eventually found a flashlight and managed to slosh my way upstairs to see where all the water was coming from, still completely stunned by the overwhelming event. The smoke alarms apparently had shorted out due to the water, and that’s why they were all screaming. We eventually found the source of the water—water was spilling out over the top of the washing machine, as it had apparently never stopped filling during its rinse cycle. The following hours and the next few days could be summed up as follows: grab everything of value, dry it off, survey the damage, make lots of phone calls, friends come over to help us move soggy furniture, friends offer for us to stay in their basement, we say yes, we move our whole house into their basement and start unpacking boxes of hastily-packed items and moldy books.

By now, it’s a WEEK PAST Rachel’s due date, there’s still no baby, we’re both very sleepy, stressed out, and living in an unfamiliar place, living out of boxes, trying to find lots of our “things” that make life easier (such as toothpaste, etc). We picked up the kiddos and brought them to our new “home,” and tried to explain that our old home was “broken” and we couldn’t stay there any more. They didn’t understand. Two weeks pass, and there’s still no baby. Eventually the baby does come—15 days late. We had planned to have a homebirth, so we asked the family we were staying with “can we have our baby in your basement?” Fortunately, our friends were gracious and understanding, and they didn’t mind at all. (Though I still think it’s probably the strangest request I’ve ever asked anyone).

The property management company eventually deduced that it would take over two weeks to dry everything out and completely restore the townhome, so they let us out of our lease early (thankfully!) so we could find somewhere else to live. At that point we started up the house search again, figuring that as long as we needed to find a place to live, we may as well see if we could just buy a home so we’d only have to move once. Rachel and I looked over a few pages of photos and information on homes, and after looking at a few on the list, she told me “Ron, why don’t you just go look at these homes and tell me when you’ve found one? I’d prefer not to be a part of the home search because I’ll be too disappointed if we choose one and the deal falls through.” I told her that I thought it was a great idea, so I took her up on the offer, and told Ray, “let’s go see some of these homes—with just you and me.” He asked if my wife wanted to come, and I told him she didn’t want to be a part of the home selection process. He couldn’t believe that, and told me “you must have a very trusting wife.“

So I looked at houses, applied for a mortgage, and did everything necessary to start the buying process. Fortunately, our timing coincided with the recent “First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit,” so we qualified for that, which was a huge blessing. Ray and I looked at a few homes until I found one that was perfect. The location was great, it didn’t need that much work, it had enough bedrooms, and it looked nice. So I told him “put in an offer—I’ll buy it.”

I didn’t think it was that unusual, but at every turn in the home buying process, people kept asking me “what does your wife think?” and I got to the point where I just started saying “she doesn’t know about the house yet. It’s her Christmas present.” Around the end of October, I did check in with her, making sure that she was okay with me looking for a home without her. She looked me in the eyes and calmly said “Ron, when I married you, I made a vow that I will stay with you and follow you wherever you go. And I meant that.” This was very reassuring!

She looked me in the eyes and calmly said “Ron, when I married you, I made a vow that I will stay with you and follow you wherever you go. And I meant that.“

So I filled out all the paperwork to purchase the home, signed the contracts, completed the applications, and all the while, Rachel figured I was still in the very early stages of looking for a home. All the paperwork came through, the loan was approved, and it was just a matter of small negotiations between the seller and me. (I asked for all new flooring because the pets from the previous tenant had totally torn up all the carpet.)

I kept working on getting the contractors in to repair/replace the parts of the house that needed work, and Rachel just trusted that I would take care of her. Throughout the entire process, the reactions I got from different people were astounding—some were funny, some sad. I’ve kept track of a lot of reactions because they’re interesting to me, and they tell me a lot about the culture we live in. Here are just a few.

Comments From Men:

Sad:

• “I can’t believe your wife is letting you pick out a house without her!”
• “My wife won’t let me buy a shirt without asking her first!
• “Are you sure you want to do that? It could be the worst choice you’ll make in your life!”
• “She may divorce you over this—you know that, right?”

Happy:

• “You have an amazing wife! She must really trust you!”
• “Wow, your wife is one in a million!”
• “Your giving her a house for a Christmas present? That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard! I wish I had done that for my wife!”

Comments From Women:

Sad:

• “I would never let my husband choose anything without me. I hate surprises!”
• “My husband is terrible at surprising me. If he bought me a house, I’d cry!”
• “She’s crazy. She WANTED you to buy a house without her?”

Happy:

• “Your wife is amazing—she must be very easy going.”
• “You must have a strong marriage, cause that’s a lot of trust.”
• “Good for her! She’s a lot more relaxed than I am.”

Almost everybody responded with shock and disbelief. Some thought I was joking. One day, right before I closed on the house, some of my friends cornered me in a room and somberly warned me that this would probably turn out to be the biggest mistake in my entire life, and that it may cost me my marriage. I had never really worried about this home search until I started hearing these comments—I was sad to hear this kind of commentary. Some people were supportive, but a majority thought I was being young and foolish. One person asked me “How is it possible that she doesn’t know? You’ve been living in a basement for a month…. isn’t she constantly nagging you to find out what your plan is?” I simply responded “I told her I will find a place for us, and she trusts me.”

After thinking and praying about it one last time, I bought the house. I had applied for the mortgage alone, I closed alone, I signed the final papers alone, and my name was put on the title, alone. The closing in itself was a story! The title company told me that I’d have to bring my wife to closing to sign some final papers. I insisted that I didn’t want her to come to closing, cause it would spoil the secret. I wanted to be able to give her the keys and tell her “Merry Christmas—I bought you a house!” They did change the paperwork, reluctantly, so that only I had to be at closing. Even then, while I was signing the final papers (hundreds of them), the lady from the title company told me “in all my years of business, I’ve never heard of anyone doing this before.“

I wanted to be able to give her the keys and tell her “Merry Christmas! I bought you a house!”

So after everything was signed, on the morning of Friday the 13th, I was handed the keys to my house and told “Congratulations! You’re now officially a homeowner!” I walked out of the building with a huge grin on my face and a little extra bounce in my step.

This is when the real work began. It kind of felt like an episode of “Extreme Home Makeover.” About an hour after I got the keys, I drove straight to the house to meet the flooring and window contractors, to discuss fitting the house with new floors and windows. We decided to wait on the windows, but had the flooring guys tear out all the carpet and tile, and replace it with new “StainMaster” carpet (which is supposedly child-resistant, but we’ll see), and put real Maple hardwood in the kitchen. The very next day, I hired an arborist to chop down the massive Ash tree in the backyard that was leaning over the house, to prevent it from falling into the structure.

I hired my younger brothers, Reuben and Ryan, to rake leaves, pick up garbage, tear off wallpaper, put painter’s tape on all the trim and start painting. I ordered 10 gallons of paint, and we got busy. I needed a way to have the house painted without Rachel finding out about it, so Reuben spent two weekdays working on it, while I was at the office.

By Friday night, the painting had taken much longer than expected, so I told Rachel I’d have to work all night on some important, last minute work, and went to the house to paint as much as possible. So Reuben and I chugged coffee and energy drinks, blasted 80′s new-wave music and painted until 5:30am. I finally arrived home (our friends’ basement) at about 6:30am and crawled into bed.

Later that morning (Saturday), we woke up and I told her I wanted to take her out on a date at a coffee shop. So we left the kids with the Grandparents’ again, and headed off for our date. (Or so she thought… secretly, I was going to show her the Christmas present I’d just gotten her!) On our way there, she noticed that I had turned on a residential street and was driving through a neighborhood and asked me “where are you going?” I told her I had to stop by someone’s house to pick up something for work. We drove for a while until I pulled into the driveway and parked. I pressed play on the van’s CD player, and while Etta James sang “At Last,” I pulled out a set of keys and said “Merry Christmas Rachel. I bought you a house!” She reacted as I expected: “Really? Are you serious? This is our house?” I gave her the keys and said “It’s all yours. Do you want to open your present?” So we walked up to the front door, and I ran inside and turned on my already-set CD player with “our song,” ran back outside and carried her over the threshold of our home. Our home. Our very first house. I popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and we danced in our socks on the brand new hardwood floor. On the counter top, there was a box of chocolates and a card I had set out the night before.

All those weeks of uncertainty, with people criticizing and heckling me for my decision had paid off. Her reaction was everything I had hoped for. I knew she would cry. What I didn’t expect, was that I would cry too! We both did, as we held hands and I showed her each room of her new house. She loved it! She even liked the colors I chose for the carpet, the hardwood and the paint. I had sweated over those decisions! I didn’t want to show her a perfectly good house that I had ruined by choosing funky colors! But it turned out just fine.

All those weeks of uncertainty, with people criticizing and heckling me for my decision had paid off. Her reaction was everything I had hoped for. I knew she would cry. What I didn’t expect, was that I would cry too!

I felt like superman that day—not only had we gone through so much in the weeks leading up to that day, but we had come so far as a couple, as parents, and as friends. We had just celebrated our 4th wedding Anniversary the month before, she had just given birth to our third child, and now we had a home. We had just spent 6 weeks living in another family’s home (which was very generous), but it still wasn’t “our house.” Now we actually had our house.

In conclusion, it was worth it! I’m glad we did it this way. It was a fun experience for me, and it was exciting to be able to surprise my wife with a new home. I don’t usually like to be the center of attention, or have people gawking about me, and how different or strange we are, but this was a little different. This was worth being different and standing out. My wife, as folks reminded me, really is extraordinary. Our relationship has been that way from the beginning. When we were married, I promised her that I would provide for her as long as I was able, and she promised me that she would stay with me—for “richer or poorer.” And that’s the way marriage should be. I need to know that my wife will follow me, even if I get laid off, or become poor, or move to another country. And fortunately, my wife trusts my leadership. I love my wife!

-Ron Stauffer

So I’ve finally taken the plunge and gone full time with my website business! I started my company, four by five photo and design, LLC, in March of 2008, so it’s been around for a while, but I’ve finally decided that I should spend all my work hours with this venture.

I’ve been encouraged by several people to do so for quite some time, but up until Thanksgiving, I wasn’t ready. This November, I took a good look at the number of clients that I had, and the limited number of hours in a week, and figured I’d be better off focusing on one industry instead of two at a time! I’ve been wary of over-committing myself, because I still had one foot in each camp: one in construction, and one in graphic design and building websites. Construction right now is hurting, but marketing is booming! When companies need business, they need to find ways to bring more people through the door. That’s what I specialize in, so I saw my business shrinking on one side, and increasing on the other. So I jumped ship and dove into the deep sea of self-employment.

Rachel is thrilled with this, as this hopefully means I can spend more time with her and the kids instead of working two full time jobs. I’ve also had a passion for website marketing for years, so I’m excited (more…)