My husband, Doug, and I live in a Sears kit house, the Hammond model, built in 1939. When we first saw the house, we fell in love and said "no way" all at the same time. He fell in love with the 1952 Chambers gas stove on one side of the galley kitchen:
and I fell in love with the glass-front cabinets on the other side.
But at 1,000 square feet, the house was tiny, and in April of 2007, the time was wrong. We had plans to marry in February of 2008 after my daughter started college in September of 2007. We wanted to wait until she moved onto campus to start our new life. I pushed the little house to the back of my mind, but it kept popping back up, wanting to be remembered. Just hours after I told the owner that we were no longer interested, my 20-year-old son, Alex, called me, just to check in.
"Hi, Mom, what's up?"
"Nothing, Doug and I just looked at a house that we really love, but we decided we just can't do it right now. Christine's graduation is coming up, we have parties to plan..."
"Whoa, Mom, if this is your dream house, that other stuff doesn't matter. It will all work out. You need to call that lady back and tell her you want the house."
We did, and four months later, despite bad timing and tiny dimensions, it was ours.
As I walked down our sidewalk to the street one day shortly after we moved in, I noticed some tar markings on the grey concrete. The black stuff had hardened into the initials "AK."
AK. Alex Kukich. The guy who talked me into making one of the best decisions of my life even though he was just a junior in college.
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