At First Sight...

Okay, okay. I can't ignore the tap, tap, taps anymore. :-)
Here's the story of how we came to buy our home and what we're doing to fix it up.

I've been trying to decide just where it all began...
Was the first day we saw this house?
Was it when we left Ohio?
Was it when we got married?
Was it when we met?
Was it when we dreamed of each other?
Was it when we each were born? Now I'm getting silly.
I could keep on going back and back but I'll call a halt and go back just as far as when we decided to move to the second house that we've lived in since moving to Puget Sound.

We moved to the second house (our house) because I was working nearby and I would have a much shorter commute. Gooserock found an ad in the local newspaper for a modestly priced rental and we made an appointment to go see the house.

Here's what we saw when we entered the neighborhood.

We absolutely could not believe our eyes. How can we afford to live here? But the ad gave an amount that was less than the rent on our "first" Puget Sound house.

Then we rounded the corner onto the street where we'd live and saw:






When we saw the other houses on the street, we KNEW it was impossible. But, we go inside the house to the second floor where the living quarters are and looked out the front window and our jaws dropped.







Then we looked out the side window and we had to scrape our jaws off the floor.






"Yes, we'll take it" we told the landlord. That was October 2003.

Just having all that to look at was enough. It didn't matter at all that the house was really quirky and beat up and the living quarters were small. After all, we are inside looking out more than we are outside looking in.

After we had rented the house for 2 1/2 years, we were told we'd have to move because the house was to be sold well beyond our means and it was doubtful that we could afford it. This was May of 2006 and the real estate market was at its craziest high.

Well, we knew perfectly well, what condition this house was in. We were very familiar with all its warts and weaknesses. And even so, we had been very happy there for 2.5 years. So we decided to give it a try. The landlord told us the asking price. We gave up, sold our sailboat and looked for another rental that we could afford and that had space enough for the craft business workshop where we make equipment for the arts. Not an easy combination, but we found one.

Then we had an idea....maybe we could apply the rent we'd already paid as partial downpayment. We asked. It didn't work. So we went back to looking for another rental. We found another one. Then our nextdoor neighbor and our old landlord from house #1 said, "If there is ANY way to work it out, you (we) really must try for it."

So we started head scratching again, talked to two sets of parents, cashed a small annuity and I started my Social Security a year early to increase monthly income (yes, there are some benefits to aging). We made an offer and by gosh and by golly, our offer was accepted!!!

One of the greatest gifts of all this was how different we feel, now that the house is our home instead of a rental we were temporarily living in...a dream we never dared to dream.

So, I had to give this preliminary (foreword) to the story so that there is context for the changes we will slowly make. We are totally out of money now, so any improvements will be by sweat equity and slow but we're loving it.