When we moved back to Virginia Jeremy and I made the crazy decision to buy a house that needed a little love. For years and years (maybe even before we got married) we had talked about fixing up an old house and making it our own. We wanted to do all the work ourselves and tear down walls and live in chaos. Well, reality (like kids!) made that dream a little less...hmm..realistic :) Add Jeremy's job which requires him to work very long days and our constant moving and it just never worked out.
Then we got moved here sooner than we thought we would be moved anywhere. And, money wise, it was very sudden. So, we reluctantly looked at rentals. I hated the idea of renting again but I was resigned to a couple more years of living in someone else's house. And, then, because of the economy we realized that in many cases it was cheaper to buy than to rent. After some quick but serious conversations (we didn't have lots of time to decide!) we chose to buy a house again.
So, crazy girl that I am, I had this idea...what if we didn't spend even close to what we were approved for? What if we bought a really cheap house and fixed it up? What if we used the extra money for renovation and paying off debt? Was that stupid? Insane even? Yeah, probably. But that's what we decided to do.
We looked at bunches of houses...townhouses, houses with floors that I was afraid would collapse as we walked across them, a house on a beautiful (BEAUTIFUL) couple of acres that was scary with how much work it needed and that was before we discovered the basement had been sitting with at least a foot of water in it for who knows how long. We looked at houses that had floors covered in red dirt and houses that were so tiny I didn't even know where the family would sit to eat dinner. Our only criteria to go look at a place was that the price was cheap and the house was liveable. This would be a slow and steady process for us...not something that would be completed in a month or two and so we needed plumbing and electric ready to go.
I saw our house as an online listing and immediately said "Nope. Don't like it." Our realtor kept bringing it up and on one of my Virginia house hunting trips I finally agreed to see it. I walked in the front door and loved it right away. I made Jeremy come look at it with me that very evening. He felt the same way I did. The house was small and only had one bathroom. Ack! It was old and had the ugliest (and tiniest) kitchen I'd ever seen but there was something about it. We figured that a small house would be perfect for this project. After all, who wants to experiment on a huge, overwhelming house? We have a great fireplace (and family room), we have a cute corner lot, we have hardwood floors and big trees in the yard. The roof and windows are new. Central air has already been added. There is potential here. It's a small house but it's cozy. It has good bones and it makes me feel safe and warm and happy. Who cares that it needs lots of work? That just means I get to dream and plan more :)
So! After living here for 6 months we are finally ready to start working on the house. We didn't plan on taking it quite this slow but vacation and settling in and holidays snuck up on us and took up all our time (and money!). But, in a way it's been good. We've learned the house, we've learned how we live in it, what areas we gravitate toward and what needs to change. We actually changed our plans a bit based on this information we didn't have when we first moved in.
I plan on documenting the process of our construction...and demolition. I'm hoping to learn lots and planning on staying very busy. We'll have to start with the boring stuff first but I'm so anxious to get goingnso we can get to the good stuff (cabinets and flooring and paint chips, Oh my!).
First up...painting the current kitchen, painting the trim and doors in the bathroom and the kids rooms and moving the attic access and putting in an attic ladder. Look for pictures and stories (and maybe some complaints :) in the upcoming weeks...
The New PostSecret Book
10 years ago
