Our beginnings...

In 2009, we bought our first home. After living with Josh’s parents when we got out of the Navy and a couple of years of apartment living, we decided that it was time to look into buying a house. We started our search online and found a neat little house in Lowell. The realtor for that property was a man named John Cremer. Once we contacted John and asked to see it, we decided that it was a nice house, but not exactly what we were looking for. We continued working with John to find the perfect house.


In the winter of 2008, we received an email from John about a property that he had just purchased and he thought that it was exactly what we were looking for. In the email he gave us the address and told us to come out and look at it anytime. The next day, Wednesday, we decided to check it out. As we are driving slowly down the road, we were quiet, lost in our own thoughts. After coming over a slight hill, we see the house. We both looked at each other and said out loud, “This is it.”

We pulled into the driveway to find John’s car and a slightly beat up pickup truck. After getting out of the truck we walk into the garage to find the two men. John introduces us to the other man who is the mason. John walks us into the dining room and then starts a quick tour of the house. I was sold on the first look of the bedroom. Josh was sold on the first look of the land.

One of my main “things” was that the master bedroom had to be large enough for our bedroom set. We have a California King bed, 2 nightstands and a large dresser. We had many issues with our furniture in the apartments due to its size. I was not going to sell my bedroom set so therefore the bedroom had to be big enough.

Josh just wanted space. He didn’t want neighbors so close that you could spit and hit their house. He wanted to be out in the country.

Needless to say, no one else looked at the house. We told John that day that we wanted to start the paperwork right away. Four months later, the house and land was ours.

The house we purchased is an 87 year old three bedroom, one bath cottage on 5 acres at the Caledonia/Dutton border. It has two barns and a ton of potential. Since moving in 3 years ago, we haven’t done nearly as much as we thought we would have had accomplished by this time. Josh and I both have full time jobs that keep us away from the farm for substantial amounts of time during the daylight hours. Most of our “upgrades” have been done at night or on the weekends when Josh and I aren’t working.