Acquiring Our New Old Home

The farmhouse was built in 1892, and was one of the original homesteads when this town was first being populated by lumbermen and their families. While the original two-story home remains, it also has newer additions to make room for bathrooms and a kitchen—remember, this home was built in the day of outhouses and much simpler kitchens. Once our renovations slow down and we can officially move in, I hope to dig deeper into the rich history of this town, and especially of this house (another fun blog post, perhaps?). 

Our new house previously belonged to one of my uncle’s friends as an investment property. When John first purchased the house, he put a lot of money into fixing it up to remain a solid home for many more years to come, including lifting the house and adding a modern perimeter-style foundation. Sadly, John passed away recently, leaving the house to his daughters. Because neither of them live in the area anymore, they opted to sell it, and with the connection we had through my uncle, we were able to put in an offer before the house ever hit the market. 

This might not sound like a big deal in a slow housing market, but in the area we were looking to buy a home, houses with enough land for horses or other livestock were being snatched up quickly with multiple offers over asking price. We didn’t stand a chance at acquiring a house with land for my horses in the open market. I even had to contemplate the idea of returning to boarding my horses, something that made my heart hurt. Thankfully, the sisters accepted our offer, and then the real work began.

Garbage Galore

Unfortunately, John hadn’t seen how poorly the tenants had been taking care of the farmhouse and the land for all those years. While the inside had its fair share of issues (as I’ll share in another post), the land was mostly unusable due to vastly overgrown blackberry bushes and multiple loads of junk haphazardly tossed anywhere, much of it tangled in the berries. The amount of overgrown berries and garbage made the property feel a lot smaller than it truly was.

Prior to closing escrow, the sisters gave us permission to access the property early and start clearing the berry bushes. After weeks of Lane working to clear the berries, the sisters then hired a junk hauler to come collect all the trash left behind by the tenants—old box TVs, rusted bicycle frames, a couple fifty-gallon drums, full garbage bags, coffee cups and beer bottles, random pieces of lumber and metal, broken chunks of concrete, a torn wading pool, a rusty propane tank, and so…many…tires. And that’s just some of the junk they hauled away in multiple trips to the dump. When that was done and escrow finally closed, my mother-in-law helped plant pasture seed to grow grass for the horses and keep the berries at bay. You’d have to see how drastic the transformation was to believe it (fortunately, I took a few photos!).

The Roof

The roof also looked a bit funky, with missing shingles on the original part of the house and corrugated metal over wooden shingles and plywood on the addition in the back (somehow, I never took a photo of this monstrosity). Unsurprisingly, it utterly failed inspection. With a price reduction agreed upon by the sellers, we planned to hire a crew to repair it ASAP. But as we collected a few estimates from local roofers, the price continually increased until it was nearly double the original inspection estimate. Our budget was limited, but the roof desperately needed to be done. 

My parents encouraged us to contact a roofing company near our previous hometown. I thought for sure the price would be ridiculously high with travel fees attached, if he’d even consider coming this far north. But after my parents’ repeated urging, I finally caved and we gave him a call. When his estimate came in, I was in tears. For the lowest price out of any of the estimates, his crew would tear the roof down to the rafters and replace the entire roof, sheathing and all. And they would rebuild the overhang on the porch and install seamless gutters. And they could start in two weeks. Needless to say, we hired Humberto’s Roofing right then and there.

To Be Continued…

Next time, I’ll discuss a few other exterior tasks we tackled on our big to-do list.