2. The House…
Who doesn’t like an old house?
Based on the glut of construction I see, I guess not very many. And I get it. Why make a huge investment in a home that will need even more money poured (seemingly without end) into it? I guess it depends on a person’s aesthetic. What kind of character they value in a home; the types of places they’ve lived in and loved before.
Our first home was over 140 years old, with a stacked stone foundation, and plenty of quirks, but we loved its worn floors, high ceilings, big rooms, and huge windows.
This time around, the farmhouse is a spry 120 years old (at least, that’s what the county says, though I’m inclined to disagree based on the architectural elements within the home, but what do I know?), and a good deal older than many of the manufactured or dark, box-like post-war homes in the area.
The light is fantastic, the floors we uncovered are beautiful, and the space is open and airy, despite the house’s 1000 square feet.
It’s also falling in on itself with some serious foundation issues, is home to a robust rodent population, has a perpetually wet basement, sloping floors, sagging beams, water damaged walls, ceilings, and floors, a fireplace that’s separating from the house, termites, and mold in the crawlspace. I’m still baffled that an underwriter signed off on our mortgage. And I guess even more appropriate, what in the world were WE thinking?
But a week in, we’ve pulled up the carpets, removed about a million carpet staples and the glue residue some entrepreneur decided would be the best strategy to hold down the carpet padding, spot-sanded and stained the more damaged parts of the wood floors (and in some instances, completed replacing the southern yellow pine planks), applied several coats of tung oil to bring them back to life (if there ever was a magic product, this is it, folks), then stained and installed a couple hundred feet of quarter-round.
We also started in on the kitchen, replacing the stove and faucet, cleaning out the cupboards and drawers of mouse poo and leftover traps, and attempting to remove the grime of 10,000 greasy dinners from the upper and lower cabinet faces. This coming week’s project: to sand and paint the cabinets, and replace the hardware.
Some other fun quirks of the area: I’m on propane and septic for the first time in my life (a whole other learning curve of utility procurement and maintenance), and there is no garbage or recycling pick up. Instead, on Tuesdays from 2-6, pickup trucks from the area’s residents line up outside of the feed store where there is a garbage truck parked and a recycling dumpster placed, and like good little soldiers, queue, park, unload, and drive away. It’s $50 for the year to procure a “trash card” from the county, though I don’t see anyone checking cards, so anyone is likely to dump anything. But driving through the area, it’s clear some good people won’t flaunt the law, and rather than pay the $50, heaps of singed garbage sit in yards, or in pits, smoldering.
Yes, it’s a different world, entirely.
We’ll continue to update as rooms are transformed, though everything is still in flux at the moment, with 95% of our belongings still stored in the garage. We’ve even been sleeping on a leaky air mattress that needs re-inflated every couple of hours in an effort to keep the floors easily accessible for rehab. But tomorrow (FINALLY!) we set up the bed. Full night’s sleep, here we come!