Our new old house. Beautiful, right? I know you’re jealous.
TAG’s job that he got a couple months back is much closer to his hometown than where we currently are living so we knew that the best thing for us to do would be to move. Here. Mortgage free. That part sealed the deal for me.
It actually has some good bones under what you’re seeing here. Lots of potential for this little gem. TAG’s great-grandparents built this house back in the early 1900s & it is the house TAG lived in as a child, but after his mom passed away about 18 years ago, the family just rented it out. Due to that, it has not been taken care of & was pretty much run down. The renters left a few weeks ago & we have been cleaning, repairing, & painting like crazy on the weekends to get this house back into decent shape. It is really starting to shape up & is almost back to livable condition.
This is obviously the before picture & I will be sure to post the afters. If we ever get there! Right now we are in the during stage & I will try & post those pictures soon as well. As I said, the house has character that I love. We found some little treasures in the kitchen behind some paneling that I am super excited about! However there are some not-so-exciting things as well. Like a tiny master bedroom & bathroom. And I do mean TINY. Like we are having to sell our king size bedroom suite because it won’t fit, tiny. (Let me know if you are in the area & interested in it!) And there is no central heat or air. We have those lovely window air conditioners in several rooms. Blah! We debated putting in a unit, but honestly, we don’t want to put too much money into it because we are hoping that it will just be a stepping stone while we save up enough money to build the house we want. I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in a few years!
The house is a lot bigger that it looks from the outside (except for the master!) but it has an awkward floor plan. You have to walk through Riley’s room to get to Averly’s room. Her room doesn’t have a closet & it has a front door out to the porch. I’m thinking this room was originally an office of some sort. We’ll make it work with armoires due to the closest situation though.
I have actually enjoyed the process of fixing up the house. We are doing everything ourselves, (nothing too major) which makes things very interesting! And we’ve had lots of help from family & friends.
And here’s the reason I’ve been so secretive about the whole thing. I didn’t know what I was going to do as far as work. I really didn’t want to leave my current job & definitely didn’t want to have to job hunt again. So I have been waiting on my boss to get it approved through her boss to let me work from home. It was finally 100% ok-ed & I start working from home next week! I am beyond thrilled about that & so very thankful! Riley is also starting preschool next week (Thursday) so I have everything lined up as far as where he will be while I work. Averly is a different story. I don’t want to send her to a daycare just yet so I think my mom is still going to keep her as needed. Praise God for such wonderful parents that want to keep my kids!!
So there it is, my latest project. I will get back into the routine of blogging more frequently soon. Promise.
Oh and PS, I actually snuck in a very much needed little girls’ night last weekend! It took 4 men babysitting my 2 kids (TAG included), but I hear they had lots of fun watching football, reading RedHead catalogs & picking out camo ensembles. :0)
