HOME STRETCH

It would have been easier to tear down our Myers Park ranch and start over. But homes like these were built to last, so we gave ours a second chance

- Taylor Bowler

When we moved into our 1,900-square-foot Myers Park ranch in 2014, my husband and I were first-time homebuyers with a baby approaching his first birthday. The yellow brick house, built in 1947, had all the quirk and charm we love—the hardwood floors creaked under our feet, and an old-time telephone niche accented the main hallway—so I could overlook the lack of storage and tiny bathroom. The kitchen had been updated in the mid-’90s, and while the light wood cabinets and dark granite countertops weren’t my taste, it functioned just fine. The house was in a good school district and within walking distance of Little Sugar Creek Greenway and Park Road Shopping Center. We could make it work.

A year later, we had our daughter. I soon shared a bathroom with two toddlers, and we all huddled over one sink to brush our teeth. We talked about moving into a bigger house. But we loved our neighborhood and had to stay within a one-mile radius to keep our kids in the school district. It was a common Charlotte dilemma: We wanted a four-bedroom, move-in-ready house, but we could no longer afford our own neighborhood.

We considered tearing the house down and building a custom home, as our neighbors had. It seemed easier than working with our existing footprint. We could raze our house for $15,000 and replace it with something new in nine months for about $300,000. But first we’d have to pay off the mortgage—in essence, we’d buy the house outright just to tear it down.