March 22nd, 2006 - A new old house
Eric and I just did something completely nutty.
There’s a big old Victorian home I pass on my way to/from work every day. I’ve always liked it, and enjoy dreaming of living in such houses. It contradicts my desire and love for the Not So Big house, but….
A number of weeks ago, they started cleaning out that house. I couldn’t tell from the stuff whether it was “we’re moving,” “we’ve got junk and need to clean up,” or “someone died and they had a lot of junk.” It’s a house I’d dreamed of owning, so I kept an eye out to see if it would go up for sale. It would be fun to at least see the interior. On Friday, the sale sign went up–sort of. It was only the post, not the actual sign. I called up our agent who helped us uy our present house, and he couldn’t find it listed yet. aaargh. I haunted the house all weekend, and the sign went up Sunday morning. I called after church, and the agent called me back 15 minutes later.
It’s an old, big Victorian, so I figured it would be out of our price range. But it was right at what I said was the biggest mortgage we could possibly afford without killing ourselves!!!! Of course, that probably meant there was some issues….
We got to see it that afternoon. And, indeed, there are some issues. The house has not been maintained (but on the good side, that also means there aren’t 6 layers of paint or 3 layers of wallpaper glue!). The bathrooms are pretty bad–one of tubs/shower is compeltely unusable. The other, the shower probably isn’t although the tub looks like it is. Paint is falling off in many of the closests. The upstairs enclosed porch (yes!, although it’s small) is sloping). The furnance may or may not heat the whole house (it is an estate sale, so the trustee doesn’t know details). The electrical wiring is the old kind. The place needs a deep, deep cleaning. The belongings for the estate sale aren’t even organized yet. (We figure the last two being taken care of alone would add at least $5000 to the sale price.) We’ll have to put a lot of work into it, but if we do, it could be a great investment! Most of the work (we believe) we can do ourselves–it’s not like it’s falling down. It just needs some cleaning, paint, some cracks repaired. (For the most part, there are some small areas in worse shape.)
But, oh, the YARD! It’s on about 1/2 an acre. The backyard is like a small park. It has a ton of trees. And the backyard is already fenced (requirement with 2 dogs!). There are flowers and veggie gardens (although not fenced away from our dogs). Without the yard, we wouldn’t have considered it.
It has 5 bedrooms upstairs. There’s supposedly one downstairs, but we wouldn’t use it for that. There are 2 full baths (well, except that one isn’t usable). There are two living rooms and a dining room. Plus a kitchen. It’s so big that we can easily work a room at a time w/o disrupting our lives.
So we put in a bid on Monday afternoon and it was accepted Tuesday morning. We’ve MOVING!!!!!
We have an inspection scheduled for next Tuesday. We can see all the obvious problems. We want to be certain it won’t fall down around us. And we want to get a quote on replacing the wiring, and find out if we can do it room by room or if the whole house needs to be done ASAP.
Eric always said he wouldn’t move farther north. The house is 6 blocks south of our current house! (And one block farther south than our apartment.) The first time we moved about 10 blocks. Now it’s 6 blocks. I guess next time, we have to move less than 2 blocks away! LOL
Because of our frugal living, we’ll be able to afford this house. And to even afford to carry both houses if Bent Ave doesn’t sell right away. Luckily, we’d paid off my education loans 2 years ago and the second mortgage last year. Because of our aggressive payments, we’ll be able to either put 20% down, or carry a second mortgage to give us enough money to redo the bathroom and the electrical work. To keep saving money towards upgrading the house, we will need to cut some areas. Oddly (to me), we are probably going to cut down on our retirement savings. However, we expect the house to be an investment. The redone Victorians in the area have gone for $250,000+ (and that was 5 years ago). And those houses didn’t have the yard this one does.
The oh-so-very-large house also means two other things for us. A) We definitely have room for our sister to come live with us (she’s 11 now and we will become her guardians when necessary). B) We will still have 2 bedrooms for foster children.
Oh, I forgot to mention: The huge attic which could easily be made into more rooms. And the large basement with high ceilings. And one other drawback: the ceilings in the house are something like 12 feet high! Heavens that far too high for my tastes.
We’re not prepared to sell our current house. Luckily, we keep it fairly clean and uncluttered. My biggest disappointment is the work and money I’ve put into the gardens. The $500 fence for the new garden is probably compeltely wasted. And the $200 I personally spent on my flower garden, including those stones I love. At least I’ll get to see the bulbs bloom this spring. Hopefully, the new owners will love the flower, veggie, and fruit gardens. That would make me feel a LOT better about it.
4 Responses to “A new old house”
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March 22nd, 2006 at 9:45 am EST
Congratulations! I have a 100-year-old house myself, and love it.
March 22nd, 2006 at 4:06 pm EST
Wow! Sounds like an adventure!
If you have photos of the garden in bloom from last summer, make sure the agent includes them in your brochure or prepare a detailed notebook with garden plan to leave on the kitchen table for prospective buyers. Also, if you close on the new house before signing a contract on the old one, you may be able to transplant many of the perennials to the new garden.
From someone who dug up three heirloom roses by the dark of night on moving day, because the new owners totally wouldn’t have appreciated them.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:07 pm EST
House sounds wonderful - even with the work. Somthing I did once, before we listed a house, was to remove plants, bulbs, etc from the yard. I potted them (quite poorly) and even put some just in plastic bags (bulbs from my husband’s grandmother’s garden). Something for to consider.
March 23rd, 2006 at 7:23 am EST
That sounds so awesome! What a neat adventure you’re embarking on. Are you currently a foster parent?