Our Forties Fixer-Upper
2022 Welcomed us into Homeownership!
Let me preface this by saying buying a house was nowhere on our radar for 2022.
Now that I have that out of the way, I can tell you that driving to Sweet Home on that fateful September day to look at a house was more of a “fun outing” that we wanted to take with my visiting grandparents to keep them busy before their event that afternoon. If you know my grandparents, you know keeping them busy is essential if you want to keep their 80-year-old bodies from deciding to build a barn or run a “quick” errand to pick up an antique tractor 100 miles away “on their way” to said such events.
As a hobby, Alex has been casually browsing Zillow for the past year, as many people do for fun. Since the beginning, he had his eye on one home in particular that he mentioned a few times. We knew we wanted to own a historic house eventually, but our rent was cheap and the commute unbeatable, so we weren’t in a rush.
When we decided to go look at this house “for fun” I had no idea that, three weeks later, I would be holding the keys to this house in my bony little hands.
Hoarders had owned this house before, but thankfully a flipper bought it just before us. He had cleaned out the floor-to-ceiling "stuff," and removed the cat-peed-up shag carpets. Fortunately for us, this alone had been enough to make him tire of the project and he wanted out, even if it meant losing some money on his end.
We didn’t have an appointment, so we rudely peeked in all the windows and cased the yard. Like wildfire, a small spark of interest caught on to a full blaze in all four of us as we were inundated with the waves of potential. Our feet were germinating already.
The roof was littered with debris, the once-white siding covered in moss and encased in the foliage so peeking in the windows was no easy task. The yard hadn't been touched in 30 years, and what we could see of the barren interior was peeling wallpaper and water-stained floors. But somehow, from the first day, this lumpy little jungle of a yard felt like home.
We decided to cool off our excitement by peeping at a few other houses on the market in the area, but it was useless.
I made an appointment to come back to tour the inside the following week. Despite the broken front door, the hole-filled walls, the dungeonesque basement, and the persistent aroma of cat piss, I could feel the little germinated roots of my feet begin to extend into that hardwood floor that needed rescuing.
It didn’t take much discussing because Alex felt the same way I did. The day before we called the realtor, we drove up to the house and sat in the waist-tall grass, making constellations with our fingers around all the plans we had for the place, pointing here and there, and sitting up taller with each idea. The kids playing in the yard behind ours made it easy to imagine a half dozen little cousins running around the yard, around the hallway in the kitchen, and playing hide and seek in the secret storage compartments.
Grandpa & Me circa 2006
My grandfather has been schooling me in the art of negotiation since the first time I watched him barter for an antique vase at a yard sale when I was seven.
I have learned that you always want to offer about 10% less than you want to pay so the seller feels generous coming back at you with a slightly higher number. I know to plead ignorance and to carry an air of distance when making the offer. Never let on how attached you are or how much you know about the true value of the item, but you have to do it respectfully. If you make them feel insulted, you're doomed. It's a fine balancing act.
I have used these polys plenty in acquiring vintage clothing and even furnishings when feeling especially brave, but a house is a little different than a $20 leather belt.
I called the realtor and channeled all of my grandfather’s coaching. It took a few days of back and forth, and a handful of frantic calls to my grandpa about how to play the game, but we eventually got the asking price down 20%, allowing enough room for much-needed renovations.
And like that, we had a house.
The floors were the first thing we wanted to have repaired, so before we’d even closed I got on my floor guy’s books. He started the very day we got the keys.
The floors Pre-Arnie (This was from the realtor’s site so it’s actually more flattering that it was haha!)
Arnie, the floor master, has done a number of my family members’ homes. I knew his work and knew what he could do to transform our little house into a home. He camped in his van under our carport and spent three whole weeks sanding, staining, and finishing 1,000 square feet of stapled, stained, and urine-soaked pecan and fir floors.
It was painful to not go into the house during this period, but we were there working in the yard and peeping in the windows to watch his progress throughout it. Arnie never asked me what color I wanted the stain to be or any specifics. He is a master of his trade and I trusted his opinion fully.
As with any master I have met, he doesn’t even let his opinions get in the way. I’ve seen hair and makeup artists do this at fashion week with makeup brushes, seen 70-year-old tailors doing this in their ateliers with fabric, and I grew up seeing farmers do this with soil. I imagine this is how the great masters found tender angels inside a block of marble. I caught Arnie on his hands and knees running his hands over the grain of the floor, his face centimeters away from it, almost listening for it to tell him what it wanted him to do.
The floors post-Arnie!
While waiting on the floors, my grandpa showed up with his chainsaw and my pyromaniac-leaning grandma brought matches. We cleared out all the trees around the house and almost heard it sing as streams of natural light flooded the empty rooms for the first time in decades. We must have burned at least 2 dump truckloads of debris, and have at least another two to go come springtime.
It’s a half-acre lot so you can imagine what 30 years could do to a space that size.
I was given a mini-chainsaw that I went nuts with tearing things out and throwing them on the burn pile. I'd had no idea my grandpa's logger roots were deep down in my genes someplace.
Two weeks later, friends and family helped us move out of our rental. We moved our stuff into the basement of the house since Arnie was still working his magic upstairs. My parents let us commandeer their guest room for a month so we could deep clean our rental (we got our FULL security deposit back!) and get the main floor of the house habitable.
Paint is a true renovation miracle. Alex and I got busy filling holes and slapping a fresh coat of paint over all the main-floor walls to help cure the smell and give so much life to each room. My mom and Alex’s sister helped us paint our kitchen cabinets, which was the icing on the cake!
During this time, Alex and I caught that awful flu that’s circling and were both knocked out for a full week and a half. It's also Alex's busy season at work, so he hadn't had the time he wanted to get to work on things living a half hour away. By the time we recovered we were READY to be in that house and start making it feel like home.
While we were sick, my grandma (80!) and Glenn (early ’70s) completely renovated the main bathroom and my mom got the upstairs toilet working. Glenn also changed out our horrible kitchen lights and put in a new garbage disposal.
We felt like we were walking into a whole new house with perfect floors and functioning plumbing!
With the exterior being officially fire-safe, the floors being done, the walls freshly repaired and painted, and working toilets/showers, we settled in with our furniture and I got into nesting mode.
In my next post, I can’t wait to share some of my favorite treasures from successful estate sales and thrift shop visits! I have also been hitting the Facebook marketplace hard since people are throwing out all kinds of treasures this time of year to make room for holiday guests and festivities.
A Side Note
I'd reached a really deep sense of contentment this summer, living in our rental and getting re-acquainted with a healthy body after several years of recovering from my brain injury. It's been amazing to gain traction with my career and to be able to enjoy the things I love to do again. I was nervous that moving into a project would disrupt my satisfaction with my "comfort." Our rental is the longest have lived anywhere since I was ten. I begrudged moving a little even though it was such a great opportunity.
As I said, buying a house this year wasn't the plan. Being in our new home for two weeks I can admit that getting this place fixed up is going to be a process, but it has only enforced the sense of how blessed I am to have the family and support system that God has given me. I feel so loved and cared for and can't believe how much our families want to support us throughout this journey. There's a lot of elbow grease in my future, but I am content with the pace we've set and I'm determined to enjoy the process instead of constantly reaching for the next goal.
Before Photos!
