‘It works for us’

Mom, daughter, son-in-law combine to blend home

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of two installments.

One evening while Rachel and Michael Tidwell were visiting Rachel’s mom, Sherry Lopatic, who lived a few blocks away, one offhand remark changed their lives.

Sherry recalled that fateful night in Midwest City in January 2016.

“We were sitting around my kitchen table bemoaning all the recurring bills we both had to pay — lawn maintenance, cable, alarm systems — when I said jokingly, ‘It’s ridiculous. We should just live together,’ ” she said.

To her and her daughter’s surprise, Rachel’s husband, Michael, was to first to say, “Absolutely!”

What man volunteers to live with his motherin-law?

A very special one. “Actually,” Michael told me later, “the same thought had been in the back of my mind. We already spent so much time together. It just made sense.”

When Rachel got her husband alone, she applied a hand to his forehead and asked if he meant it.

The idea quickly gained traction.

Two months later, Rachel and Michael, both in their early 30s, moved, with their cat and three dogs, out of their three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot house into Sherry’s three-bedroom, 1,500-square foot house, with her cat and two dogs.

It was supposed to be for just a few months while the couple sold

[PHOTOS PROVIDED BY SHERRY LOPATIC] Sherry Lopatic, left, her daughter and son-in-law Rachel and Michael Tidwell, and shih tzu Grace, yellow Lab Kit, black Lab Sadie, and Harley the cat, in their home in Choctaw.

When Sherry Lopatic, her daughter and son-in-law decided that by combining households they could live better for less, they built this house, which was exactly what they wanted.