Oh My Word - We're Buying a Farm!

I've been away for a while (okay like two weeks or so), because we had a couple of let-downs on the home search road.  Oh well.  Forget those houses.  They just weren't "the right one" I guess.

But today I'm happy to report that we have an accepted offer (offer, counter offer, counter-counter offer, acceptance) on this little diamond in the rough.

All photos are from the Sibcy Cline agent listing.

It's been on the market since late February.  And we actually looked at it a long time ago, like right after it was listed.  At the time, I wasn't impressed.  And then we hunted.  And hunted.  And hunted.  And got out bid.  Last week, we began to realize that this house was actually a good bet.  It doesn't have vaulted ceilings or a really open floorplan like the house we tried to buy before (twice - ugh), but there is a lot of room for improvement.  Which is really what we're after.

Back of the house

So here are all the dirty details. 

It's in Hamilton Township (near Loveland / Mason area), but not in any city limits, so we can basically do whatever we want.  And I don't have to pay local taxes.  Yay.  The area is really quiet, and the houses are all spaced pretty far apart.  You have to have a minimum 2 acre lot to be able to build out there, so we don't have to worry about cul-de-sac subdivision-type houses popping up.  It's actually on the same road as the other house (see previous link to "Finding the Prince"), but has a much bigger lot.

It's on 2.83 acres, with a barn and fenced-in pasture.  The people behind us have horses in their pasture, so we can see them from inside the house.  I don't think we'll get a horse, though.  But I wouldn't mind taking the neighbors' for a ride (once I learn how, that is . . . ).

Barn

It has a really solidly-built barn, which has 2 garage spaces, a workshop, a hay loft, and the covered area (fenced in around back) for a cow.  Or sheep.  Or chickens.  I have a feeling it may get filled up with extra cars.  Or a VW Westfalia.

Garage

Here's the garage, which is on the right side of the house, if you look at it from the street.  There's no garage door opener, so that may be one of the first projects.  It would be nice to actually park my car in a garage this winter, especially since we'll have the barn for tool / shop / mechanic-y storage.  And the treadmill is going to go in the garage.  Once I actually get a treadmill, that is.

And here's a view of the front door / porch area.

Front Porch

It definitely needs some help.  I can't wait to take that terrible screen door off and replace the wood door with something nicer.  The porch is actually big enough to put a couple of chairs out there.  Maybe that's where these will end up.

Now for the interior photos . . .

Living Room

This is the view of the living room from the hallway.  The door next to the fireplace is a coat closet, and the other door is the front entry door.  The opening to the left is the dining room, and then through the doorway you can see the spot where the fridge should be in the kitchen.  We've got to get  a fridge when we move in.  Those spindle divider thingies are coming down like, Day 1.  The fireplace is woodburning (and it's actually usable - yay!), and that brass insert is coming out as well.  Along with the mirror.  And the weird wall sconce spotlight thing. 

Here's another view, looking the opposite direction.

Living Room (looking toward hallway)

What's with all the mirrors, anyway?  The room's already 23' long, let's make it look longer!  (I hope you can detect my sarcasm).



Dining Room

 

This is the dining room. The doorway where the lightswitch is on the right leads to the kitchen. The whole back wall is glass sliding patio doors. It's such a shame they have them covered with those terrible curtains. Their coming down immediately, along with the pioneer-style lantern light fixture. Any takers? I'll ship it to you! Free of charge! 

 



Dining Room, looking toward living room

The hardwood floors run throughout the house, except for in the kitchen, bathrooms, and mudroom.  They're a bit orange for my taste, but they're in really good condition.  I'm sure the boys will have them scratched up in no time, and we'll be sanding them down and staining them darker (though not right away, since there are some more pertinent projects that need our attention).

Like the kitchen.

Ugly, tiny kitchen

So here's the kitchen, looking back toward the dining room.  It's not huge - about 8' x 10' - but we're planning to take down the wall dividing the kitchen and dining room.  We'll open it up and make one big kitchen with bar seating.  I've already devised a plan from Ikea.

So with that wall gone, we gain 6" and can extend the countertops out to have an overhang for seating.  The backs of the cabinets and range are going to be covered with beadboard and trim to finish everything off without seams.  We'll have 2 glass cabinets on the opposite wall, and open shelves to the left of the window.  Not a lot of space, but hey, I priced everything out from Ikea and the grand total came to just over $6,000 - including the appliances, hardware and countertop.  Not too shabby.

And through the door next to the fridge is a hallway that leads to the second bathroom, the mudroom and backdoor, and the garage.

Mudroom

Here is the mudroom.  And of course, I've already got a plan for that, too.

Since the kitchen's not huge, and we need more storage for food and things like that, I wanted to add some big cabinets in here.  Also from Ikea.  I love Ikea.

So you may be thinking, "Karie, aren't there heating registers all over the place?  You can't put cabinets in front of there."  That is the best part about the deal we made with the sellers.  Our lovely Realtor got us an estimate for a local company to put in ductwork and a heat pump, so that we can have central heating and A/C.  The house currently has fuel oil, which heats a hot water boiler, which then makes heat come out of the baseboard registers.  And window A/C in the summer.  That was just not going to happen.  So when we make it to the closing table, the sellers will have a check written out to the HVAC company for the amount of the estimate, and then we will have them put everything in after we close, but before we move furniture in the house.  Amazing.

So now, on to the bathrooms.  They are both blue.  Everywhere.  I'm guessing nothing in this house has been updated since it was built in 1958.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the house has been so lovingly taken care of.  And that's reassuring.

But man, are they blue.

Main Bath (near bedrooms)

 

Second Bath (between mudroom and kitchen)

I've got the same plan for both of these.  And it involves a lot of white subway tile.  But as we know, I've got mad skills with the subway tile.  This is me doing the subway tile backsplash in the kitchen at the Jasper house.

Those running shorts look terrible.  Gotta get rid of those . . .

And here are the bedrooms.  Pretty boring.  Pretty basic.  But decent sizes and they all have fairly large closets.

Second Bedroom (My Office)

Guest Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom, Opposite Corner (looking back into hallway)

I look at all these photos and keep thinking, "Damn, girl.  You've got a lot of trim to paint."  I told myself after painting all of the woodwork at the Jasper house, that the next house was going to have all the wood already painted.  No such luck.

So there it is, folks.  Our soon-to-be new house.  The home inspection is scheduled for Monday (October 1) and we have a tentative closing date of October 26.  Hopefully we won't have to pay any rent for November, and we can have everything moved out by then! 

We have a lot of packing to do.  Fortunately, we knew we wouldn't be renting for very long, and a lot of our stuff is still in boxes from the move from the Jasper house.

Wish us luck!  We're really excited and can't wait to get our hands on this place!  I hope you'll follow along on our journey.  I'll be sure to post our progress along the way!

. . . Let's Try This Again

Last night, we made another offer on the house we put the offer on back in July.  I previously posted about it in Finding the Prince.

We're trying to not get our hopes up again, since we went through all the work before to get the deal done on our end.  But our trusty Realtor has ensured us that both of the sellers have agreed to the terms in the contract and we should have both signatures needed by the end of the week.

Cross your fingers for us.

Rustic Chalet

So the house that we'd put the offer in for back in early July has fallen through - for now.  The current owners have been going back and forth trying to get full rights to sell the house in order to avoid having to be in the same room together, so that whole deal is in limbo right now.

We've continued looking and are going to see one tonight.



Listing photo

It's a chalet-style house and has a lot, I mean A LOT of interior wood.  It's a little overwhelming.

Listing photo

And the kitchen is tiny, as you can see in the photo above.  According to the Sibcy Cline listing, it's only 9' x 9'.  I'm going to take field measurements when we go look at it tonight to be sure.

I've been exploring options for this house today, mainly for what to do with all that wood.  I like the wood as a textural element, but think the walls need to be painted white. 

Layla from The Lettered Cottage has a great post with a reader question who has a guest bedroom that looks just like this house.

Image from The Lettered Cottage

The reader's husband doesn't want to lose the look of the original wood, so she suggested a few options.  Read the full article here.

This was my favorite solution, and the option I would do with the house.

Image from The Lettered Cottage

I like this image the best because it keeps the wood on the floor and ceilings, and you would still get the texture of the individual boards and the woodgrain even with painting the walls white.  Plus, the house gets a lot of natural light, and the addition of our existing white furniture and light-colored accessories would help to brighten things up.

Listing Photo

The above image shows just how much beautiful natural lighting the living room and kitchen area get.  I also love the open floorplan and the open staircase. 

Another great feature of this house is the lot.

Listing Photo

It sits on 1.27 acres off of a country road, just outside the city limit of Lebanon, Ohio.  The acreage is mostly flat, with the exception of the walk-out basement you see here.  It has a line of mature trees that border the lot to the east, to block traffic from the nearby highway.  I'd say 1.27 acres is plenty of room for a few chickens!

I really hope that this one is as good in person as it is on the website.  Who knows, by the end of the night, we might have put in an offer on it!

Wish us luck!

Finding the Prince

So the old saying about kissing frogs before you find the prince is true.  After many months of intrepid searching, countless drive-bys and peeking in windows - not to mention the hours spent on Realtor.com - we've found a house!

Our (Hopefully!) Soon-to-be New House

This is the realtor's photo from the website, so it's not the greatest quality, but it gives you an idea.  Of course, the current owners haven't been keeping up with the yard, and this photo was taken at the end of February, so it looks totally different now.

We offered them considerably less than their asking price for a couple of reasons:

1.  They haven't mowed all summer long and the yard is going to have to be mowed by professionals with a tractor.
2.  There are door jambs and mouldings that are either missing chunks because their dog ate them, or from severe weather damage, both of which could have been prevented.
3.  There is a large hole in the drywall in the basement.  The couple is getting a divorce (which is why they're selling the house), so maybe the hole is a result of a late-night domestic dispute???
4.  They took the shower heads with them in both bathrooms.  Apparently this happens frequently, because our realtor wasn't suprised by this.
5.  There is a large piece of metal flashing that is missing from the roofline above the garage that will need to be replaced.

They countered with the asking price.  Jerks.

After some debating, more looking, and hoping they'd change their mind, we decided to just accept their counter offer and pay the full asking price.  Why?  Because we're convinced that we won't find anything we love more that is in this price range with this location and lot.

Some of my favorite features:

1.  Open floorplan with entry, living, dining and kitchen all together.

The Kitchen

2.  Gas fireplace in the living room.
3.  Vaulted ceiling in the living room / dining room area.

The Kitchen, Open to the Dining Room

Vaulted Ceiling in the Living Room

4.  It has a full finished (dry!) basement.  A super bonus considering it's out in the country and I hate storms.  No more sitting in a dark wet basement riding the storm out!

Finished Basement (Looks Scary Now, but Just Wait!)

5.  It's on a 1.3 acre lot out in the country on a very quiet gravel road.  Ahh, tranquility!  And chickens!
6.  But the thing I like most about the house is that I can see the potential of how amazing it could be with some lovin' and sweat.  It has great lighting and space, and those are rare attributes amongst any of the houses we've seen.

So naturally, I've already started planning.  We've got to get some of the basics out of the way first - like some major landscaping and patching and repairing - before I get to have a whole lotta fun.