This century-old home in Brandon was once in disrepair. Now, it’s been brought back to life along with its former owner, who is now two years sober.<\/p>\n
BRANDON, Fla. \u2014 A century-old home in Brandon, once falling apart and hiding addiction, has been brought back to life along with the people connected to it.<\/p>\n
The historic property dates back to the founding of Brandon in the 1800s, sitting on land tied to the town\u2019s earliest settlers. But in recent years, the home had fallen into disrepair, needing everything from a new roof to major electrical and plumbing work.<\/p>\n
The new owners, Karen McGinnis Vaughn and her husband, spent two years restoring it, carefully bringing back its original charm, including the hardwood floors.<\/p>\n
But for Karen, restoration is personal. After a long battle with addiction that cost her nearly everything, she made the decision to turn her life around. Now nearly 11 years sober, she\u2019s dedicated her life to helping others do the same. That mission became even more meaningful when she purchased the home, seeing the potential that it has to shine.<\/p>\n
Karen says as a former addict herself, she recognized signs of struggle in the previous owner, Britany Morrison, and reached out online, “I said, ‘hey, I’m the gal that just bought your house.’ And I was throwing subtle hints like, ‘I’m also a person in recovery.'”<\/p>\n
Britany admits that she saw the messages but wasn’t ready to accept any help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I had seen her messages. I had read her messages many times. I didn’t know who I could trust,” she explained.<\/p>\n
But after hitting rock bottom, facing arrest, loss, and separation from her children, she reached out to Karen from jail, asking for help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was like, this drug has taken everything from me, every single thing. My parents had this house for me and my family so that we could have it, you know, and I lost it,” Britany said.<\/p>\n
Karen connected her with a local recovery program for women, Hillsborough House of Hope, while she and her husband worked to restore the home Britany grew up in. Karen says, “As with people in recovery, you know, as with humans, you can see that we’re diamonds in the rough. We just need a little bit of restoration and hope.”<\/p>\n
Now two years sober, Britany says the transformation of the house mirrors her own. Today, the two women share nearly 13 years of sobriety between them and a powerful bond built on second chances. Britany has regained custody of her daughters and says seeing her childhood home brought back to life has been added healing for her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My parents would love it,” Britany said.<\/p>\n
A once-broken house, now standing as a symbol of hope, healing, and new beginnings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This century-old home in Brandon was once in disrepair. Now, it’s been brought back to life along with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-294664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}