Nitty Gritty......

Where have I been?  I've been a little down about people for the past few days.  My husband wisely told me to NOT post anyting last night and I'm glad I listened.  I wasn't down about anything to do with the house or my family but just some things that have been going on in our periferal life.  I was wondering how to keep from becoming jaded about everything, how to stay positive when you see people  intentionally do harm to others.  I was even more down about some people seeing this and not standing up for what is right and just going with the "flow" and not having a backbone.  I was really feeling, and maybe still feeling, that some people would much rather see you fail than to succeed.  So that was one thing and the other is that I guess I have unintentionally offened someone who has read this blog.  I try to be very conscientious about what I write but please also remember that I am coming from my personal experience and that by reading this you are in a way reading my diary.  Shame on you!....O.K., I have left it out for the world to see.  Back to my bad mood, yes, I need to get this out.  As you may recall I like to get advise from others.  I usually call my dad "Sage Butch" when something is troubling me.  I just wanted to share what he told me just in case you ever get to feeling like I did.  He told me that we can't control how other people act, feel or what they do we only have control over how we act, feel and what we do and it is a choice.  He said that you don't have to look very far to find people that would like to see you fail but if you look just a little bit harder you will also find people that want you to succeed.  He quoted a good family friend, Alan Lewis who says "Life is too short to let other people ruin my day.  They are not that important."  My dad didn't realize that I was writing down what he was saying and took my long pause in responding to mean that I was crying so he left me with this final pearl of wisdom "It's O.K. to cry, sometimes it's theraputic."  Thanks Dad.

Now where did I leave off.....Oh yeah, I had just blundered that whole deal.  I guess I was possibly a little glad that it had gone south.  I am not a risk taker when it somes to money.  Look, this was going to be a risk and a lot of worry and work.  I'm not necessarily afraid of those things but did I mention I have three kids?  John took the inititive and decided to get in touch with the Mr.  They met out at the house and really went through it and took stock of the condition of the place.  A week or so after that they come back with an offer that we could all work with and we signed an agreement.  The next step was to get some funding for this project and pay for the property.  We worked with Cody Black at Arvest Bank and he was very realistic with us and has just really been great to work with.  He was a little concerned that we would not be able to get it to appraise high enough to cover the cost of reconstruction but it all just flowed very smoothly.  The only hiccup came with the title company and we got title insurance and it was all taken care of.  I highly recomment getting title insurance.  As much as I hate paying out for something I may never need, I think it is a smart way to protect your investment.  We also had to get construction insurance.  We worked with Farm Bureau Insurance and, as always, Chris Muldoon was great to work with.  As a matter of fact he sold me a life insurance policy on John just in case I kill him over this project. : )  The final step is the closing.  It only takes about 30 minutes to officially accept money from the bank and buy this property, just a few signatures to saddle myself with big o' debt.  When it was all done I started crying, really this very emotional.  They were not really tears of joy, I just couldn't believe that everyone involved would actually let us go through with it!  This is crazy to buy this OLD BURNED DOWN HOUSE!  But what's done is done and we now shift our focus to Randy Kersey.  He is the contractor that gave us the estimate.  John already knew him and I met him for the first time when we were figuring out all the details.  Randy is a very personable guy with a giant smile.  It is obvious that he has this inner happiness that no one can touch.  As he walked through the house with me he seemed very confident and knowledgeable about what it would take to fix the place up.  I guess I can say this now, he even said that if we decided not to buy the place he wanted to buy it.  That really made me feel better.  So now we have the go ahead and Randy can start to tear the thing apart and get all the bad parts out.  The picture below show the work he did after just a couple of days.  Now keep in mind that this was wet, dirty, molding and just gross work.  It really says that the American work ethic is still alive out there!

Kitchen family room area

This area is in the family room, and build in desk has been removed

Dining room, notice the solid wood walls. 



The larger furniture is sitting outside, all ruined awaiting disposal. 



The numbers game...

O.K., so we have our ball park estimate.  I don't know what I was expecting, obviously the house needed much more help than John and I could ever do but the estimate was more than I could actually relate to, it was more than we paid for our current house.  I'm starting to rethink this thing, remember the goal?  I experienced sticker shock twice, once with the home estimate and the other with the asking price for the property.  I didn't think there was much I could do about the repair estimate but maybe with the price of the property?
I am probably frugal to a fault and I like to find a deal.  I think this had a lot to do with my upbringing.  I grew up in an average American family, we had more than some and not as much as others.  My parents did a good job of instilling the value of the dollar in me.  I remember when I started to drive my Dad getting me a credit card in my name.  This did two things, it started to establish some credit for me and provided some security in case of an emergency.  He was very clear that the only reason I should ever use the credit card at the mall was if I was naked IN the mall.  He also told me to never charge anything unless I had the money in the bank to pay for it.  Those are some pretty tough rules to live by.  Well, not the first one, I typically don't rull around the mall naked.  Considering this upbringing it made it very difficult to really consider the risks involved with buying this place.  I had to crunch some numbers and it didn't look good.  Adding a whole new set of bills to the current ones with no new income coming in would be a challenge.  So I did a lot of "if this, and if that or we could do this"  kind of stuff.  It was going to be tight.  If we sold everything we owned and maybe a kid or two we might just be able to make this work!!!  The only area for possible flexibily is the property.  John and I talked about the price, what should we offer? What if we get started and there is a problem and the house can't be fixed, how much will we lose if we have just a lot?  SO many questions!  At one point I became conviced that the owners should pay us to get the mess off their hands!  O.K., that was wishful thinking.  Time to employ my barganing skills. 
After college, I joined the Peace Corps.  I was sent to Ghana, West Africa for a little over two years.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life and I'm so glad I was able to do it.  During my time there I learned a new language (sort of) and new culture.  Part of the culture in bargaining.  My frugal nature embraced this and I soon became quite skilled in my bargaining.  I would be specifically asked to go on shopping trips with my friends to help them shop.  After using all my techniques with the local seller, and being called names, we would both walk away satisfied and feeling good.  Now was the time to dust off my bargaining skills and try to buy this house.  I had skills!
I had  my first offer ready, remember this is the starting point, and I called up the Mrs.  We exchanged greetings and I said that we were ready to make an offer.  We are doing this at considerable risk but we would like to offer $xxx.  After only half a second pause she curtly replied that the starting price was firm and that she would not consider our offer.  Wait a second, that's not how it's supposed to work.  You see she was supposed to counter and then we go back and forth for a while and in the end we both walk away happy....I was speechless.  I didn't know what to do.  In a softer tone she suggested I talk to my husband about it, I said thank you while choking back tears and hung up.  I think I just messed it all up.  My husband was kinder that I would have been if the situation was reversed.  We didn't have much else to say that night.

Fact finding mission.....

If you will recall I was looking for a place that we could fix up ourselves.  John and I have learned a lot from the different homes that we have owned.  Out first house was in Soldier, KY.  which is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  We also later learned that until recently it was the hot spot for drugs in the state of Kentucky and the local grocery/gas stop had some bullet holes to support that comment. We were both fresh out of graduate school and John had landed the first job so we moved 14 hours away from nearest family and he started his professional life and I got pregnant with twins.  Yeah, equality of the sexes!  We had spent a couple of days with a realtor and looked at everything that was for sale within a 45 mile radius of John's job, no luck.  Just starting out we did not have a lot of money and knew that we would not be able to afford much of a house.  As luck would have it John saw a "for sale by owner house" in the local newspaper.   We decided to drive out and look at it.  It was an old farmhouse that had some additions added to it, hey it had an above ground pool, I was sold.  We spent about 30 minutes looking around and made an offer.  You might notice that we did not have a realtor and we didn't get an inspection.  This is where our learning experience came in.  I am certainly not putting fault on anyone but us.  We just didn't know what we were getting into.  As it turned out we became very experienced in home repair.  The dishwasher was not hooked up to anything, nor was there anything for it to hook up to, all the water in the house (shower, washing machine, sinks, etc.) was dumped directly into the creek behind the house, the sewer lines were not connected together under the house, and what we thought was an airconditioning unit just happened to be the shell of one.  You would think that we would notice that it was not even attached to the house.  I actually came to love this house, it had some old parts, new parts and a lot of our sweat equity in it.  I was not initially fond of the shotgun pellet holes in the siding but later learned to appreciate my husbands "personal touch".  From this experience we felt pretty confident that we could take on some moderate home projects.   I  was working as a biology instructor at a local university and that gave me summers off.  I'm pretty handy and I have a really good book on how to fix common household problems.  I'm not sure that there is a chapter that covers this.....

It became evident that if we were going to pursue this project we were going to need some help.  We both got busy gathering information.  I went to the yellow pages and John went for someone he had been on a church committee with.  The restoration people I talked to were familiar with the house and were not interested, could it be done, probably, are they interested in making a bid, NO. 

One of the things that I really like to do is ask for advise.  This used to make John made, why can't I just make up my own mind?  It is not like that for me.  I really do like to hear insights from other people, that is, the ones I solicate for advise.  The feedback I was getting was not good.  I was having lunch one day in the faculty lounge and started talking to my boss about it.  I did not know that he had his house nearly burn down.  He detailed the restoration process to me and gave me some leads and finally finished with "If I had to do it again and I would have just torn it down".  I talked to my dad about it.  He is very good about giving as little advise as possible and letting me make my own mistakes.  I refer to him as "Sage Butch" because he can generally sum it up in one statement that you want to write down, something so profound that you want to embroider it on a pillow and put on your couch so you can read it every day or possibly tattoo down your arm.  He thought that it might not be a very good idea, especially considering the goal.  Oh yeah, remember that? Reduce debt, have more fun!  Which brings me to John's contact, he was positive about it, thought it could be done, and gave us a ball park estimate.  Hmm......do I like to gamble?

The ball is in our court...

Being married is difficult, it is work and it is also mostly rewarding for me.  Like (I think) most couples John and I get into some disagreements.  Usually we are able to work through most things in an adult like manner with open and calm communication.  On the other hand we get into the nastiest fights over the simplest things like how to peel a potato.  I can literally feel my blood pressure rise when I see him go for the carrot peeler to peel a potato.  There is a reason it is called a "carrot peeler".  For this reason we will probably get a divorce over the mm width of the trim in the utility closet but as for the question of buying the house, we were in total agreement.  It really was our dream house.  That may sound a little strange considering the condition of the house but it had many of the things we wanted for our "ideal" house.  You remember the kitchen right? 

We have always thought that the kitchen needed to be the biggest room in the house, it is where everyone always congregates and this place had a huge kitchen, not to mention a lot of natural light. : )
The next step was to call the owners and see if they were willing to sell.  Again, I did just that.  I had a nice conversation with the Mrs. and she told me that they needed to think about it and see if they wanted to sell the place.  She has a lot of great memories from this house and is very emotionally tied to it, not to mention that they had invested a lot of time and money into the restoration themselves.  That may not be evident from these pictures because this house didn't just suffer from a collapsed roof, it had been in a major fire nearly a year before.  She said that we were also not the first to call on the place and that they needed to give the first opportunity to a previous inquiry.  Time to wait.

A couple of weeks pass and I call back.  The other people were not interested, too big a project.  Now some might think that this would be a warning flag, not me, bright red waving flags tend to signal that I should charge ahead!  The ball is in our court.

The search is on...

O.K. so I have decided that we need to find a fixer-upper that we can buy cheap and do the work ourselves.  I spent months looking at properties.  I still wanted a nice house in a good area but I was looking for a "deal".   There are a lot of great ways to look for properties out there, I checked local banks, national banks, fannie mae and freddie mac and I would find a few properties but we live in a rural area and I just wasn't finding the "deal".   I am new to think kind of search and it really seemed to me that there were not that many foreclosures coming up.  I think that is great for our area, we are still solid, but I wasn't doing much for my house search.  I have to say that I drug my realtor on many a goose chase.  Thanks Carey!! 

With my family loaded up we decided to just drive around and see what we could find.  There were a couple of properties I wanted to drive by, again, nothing was working out.  Out of the blue and almost too late to turn I said "lets go up here".  That is when we found it...this was March.  The street is wonderful and the views are great.  As we drove along I noticed a house that looked to be in a state of disrepair.  If you look at the post picture you can tell the one of the upstairs windows is missing.  We didn't get out but we did make note of the address.  Could this be the one?  Well, you know the answer.  What we didn't know was who owned it and the current conditions.  When I got home I started a little investigating, it's really amazing what you can find on the internet these days.  I was able to locate the tax records for the property and the current owners.  They still lived in town.  It is really interesting to see how much a property appraises for and the purchase price.  I don't know how this is all that usefull for the average personal but it satisfied my snoopy curiosity.  I didn't really know what I was going to say but I called them up.  I hope I came off a little better than "Hey, I noticed your house was looking a little shabby, want to sell it?" 

The Mrs. was very nice and asked if I had seen the back of the house.  I said that we wanted to get permission before we walked around.  She advised that I may want to take a better look before I considered buying the house.  The very next day we went for a little look.


the left side of the house, there is a cute screened porch here





the back of the house,  roof here is completely collapsed




family room area in kitchen




looking from the kitchen into the dining room




looking from dining room to the kitchen



downstairs bedroom?

downstairs bathroom

upstairs large bedroom

upstairs bedroom looking out over missing roof

from the upstairs bedroom I could look into the downstairs bathroom



right side of the house

I know what you are thinking THIS PLACE IS PERFECT!!!!!!!

Noble intentions.....

One may ask how I found this house.  I think it was my sixth sense or divine intervention, possibly you could say that the house found me.  As I previously mentioned, I was in hot pursuit of the American Dream.  I wanted dept free prosperity for my family!  Now we are doing OK.  I think we manage our resources fairly well.  We have a nice house and plenty to eat but it doesn't seem like much is ever left for recreation.  My husband and I have traveled a lot and we got in our mind that if we could pay off a house quickly then we could go on really great vacations with the kids every year and really experience life to the fullest.  Let me just give you an example.  We love going to the renaissance festival in Muskogee, OK. For my birthday this year that is what I wanted to do, so instead of a material present we went to the festival.  Now, of course we had to dress up.  We all had costumes $$$$, we had to drive a couple of hours to get there $$$$$, we had to pay to get in $$$$, we had to buy food while there $$$$$, they had beer and it was my birthday $$$$$ and we had to drive home, unfortunately my darling husband got us lost and it took about 4 hours to get home $$$$$$.  Perhaps I'll tell more about that another time.  So, as you can see, it was pretty expensive and not something we can do just anytime we want, but....if we reduced our house payments and overall debt we could do more of those things.

The Why of it all....

You may wonder why I have decided to blog about this experience (probably you are wondering what experience I am even talking about)?  In an attempt to reduce debt and live a more simple life I have quit my job, bought a burned down house, got a new job, not to mention that I have a husband three kids 6 and under, three dogs, two cats and a pet rat, oh, and I still have a morgage from the house that hasn't sold yet and student loan debt.  I'm not sure where the simplifications come in.  Yeah, it all seems a little crazy and I wanted to share it with the people most interested in delving into my psyche.  Good luck.
Brandy