I've put in an offer on a very special house
Well...
Step one in home ownership is done.
I put in an offer on a house today. My first house.
And not just any house.
Last October, I moved back to Franklin, which is the small town in Indiana that inflicted me on the world lo these many years ago. I've been in an apartment since, tentatively house hunting.
Two days ago, my cousin called, and said that there's this house around the corner from him that I had to see. It was for sale. Corner lot. Half an acre. Huge fenced back yard, huge front yard, lots of full-growth, old trees. I was looking for a two-or-three bedroom house in the general 1,500-square-foot zone. This one is a two-bedroom house of 1,400 square feet. Close enough.
But here's the kicker.
My father, the architect, designed the house. My father and his contracting company built the house. And he built it for he and my mother to live in after they got married. It wasn't the house I grew up in -- that house is around the corner. This house is in the family neighborhood, though. Within a five-minute walk from the back door are five cousins and one aunt, and a metric buttload of houses designed and built by daddy-o. The rooms aren't huge, but they're quite comfy for a single guy with a lot of books. And the layout is very creative, with a pass-through fireplace in the livingroom opening also to an interesting space behind it. Stoked? You bet yer bippy I'm stoked.
As an architect, my father was ahead of his time. Sloping, flattish roofs; a fondness for huge; vertically mounted multiple windows; vertical or diagonal siding, and HUGE back yards. (My cousin thinks he was traumatized by growing up in an old Victorian house in the heart of Franklin which had no back yard, so all the houses he built for himself as an adult have back yards you could lose a baseball team in.)
The house definitely needs work -- new roof, lots of cosmetic stuff, etc., but the bones are solid. Dad built 'em that way. A contractor working on my cousin's house was stunned to find the wall studs in the bathroom were redwood. NO ONE uses redwood for the inside structural stuff. Dad did. All over the place. Yeah, it's going to need a lot of work and fixing up, but this gives me the best combination of a house with great location, a great lot, a great design, and the option to virtually "re-equip" the thing to suit my own tastes -- flooring, wall finishings, etc. This last is something that I don't think I would have done if I had found a more "finished" house somewhere else. The only requirement I had for a house that it lacks is a garage -- but I have a huge yard to work with, and can put in a garage just about anywhere (There's a whole spate of the back-yard OUTSIDE the back fence begging for a garage and armour shop!) and potential entry from either the main drag off I-65, or the side street (can you say corner lot? I knew you could!). Oh, what I can do here....
The fenced portion of the backyard has a hot-tub (which is ratty and needs to be replaced), and is begging for a decked area and a barbeque pit. This place has soooooo much potential, and I love it.
I was really worried because there was already an offer on the house, but I went ahead and hit the bank and ran around and made it happen. This house has to be kept in the family. There is now an offer out there in my name. Now it is a waiting game, and I must wait for the bank to get back to me.
So.... Wish me luck. I may be buying the folks' old house.
The bitch of it all? I can't call mom and freak her out with the cool news. She'd love it. I know she would.
Step one in home ownership is done.
I put in an offer on a house today. My first house.
And not just any house.
Last October, I moved back to Franklin, which is the small town in Indiana that inflicted me on the world lo these many years ago. I've been in an apartment since, tentatively house hunting.
Two days ago, my cousin called, and said that there's this house around the corner from him that I had to see. It was for sale. Corner lot. Half an acre. Huge fenced back yard, huge front yard, lots of full-growth, old trees. I was looking for a two-or-three bedroom house in the general 1,500-square-foot zone. This one is a two-bedroom house of 1,400 square feet. Close enough.
But here's the kicker.
My father, the architect, designed the house. My father and his contracting company built the house. And he built it for he and my mother to live in after they got married. It wasn't the house I grew up in -- that house is around the corner. This house is in the family neighborhood, though. Within a five-minute walk from the back door are five cousins and one aunt, and a metric buttload of houses designed and built by daddy-o. The rooms aren't huge, but they're quite comfy for a single guy with a lot of books. And the layout is very creative, with a pass-through fireplace in the livingroom opening also to an interesting space behind it. Stoked? You bet yer bippy I'm stoked.
As an architect, my father was ahead of his time. Sloping, flattish roofs; a fondness for huge; vertically mounted multiple windows; vertical or diagonal siding, and HUGE back yards. (My cousin thinks he was traumatized by growing up in an old Victorian house in the heart of Franklin which had no back yard, so all the houses he built for himself as an adult have back yards you could lose a baseball team in.)
The house definitely needs work -- new roof, lots of cosmetic stuff, etc., but the bones are solid. Dad built 'em that way. A contractor working on my cousin's house was stunned to find the wall studs in the bathroom were redwood. NO ONE uses redwood for the inside structural stuff. Dad did. All over the place. Yeah, it's going to need a lot of work and fixing up, but this gives me the best combination of a house with great location, a great lot, a great design, and the option to virtually "re-equip" the thing to suit my own tastes -- flooring, wall finishings, etc. This last is something that I don't think I would have done if I had found a more "finished" house somewhere else. The only requirement I had for a house that it lacks is a garage -- but I have a huge yard to work with, and can put in a garage just about anywhere (There's a whole spate of the back-yard OUTSIDE the back fence begging for a garage and armour shop!) and potential entry from either the main drag off I-65, or the side street (can you say corner lot? I knew you could!). Oh, what I can do here....
The fenced portion of the backyard has a hot-tub (which is ratty and needs to be replaced), and is begging for a decked area and a barbeque pit. This place has soooooo much potential, and I love it.
I was really worried because there was already an offer on the house, but I went ahead and hit the bank and ran around and made it happen. This house has to be kept in the family. There is now an offer out there in my name. Now it is a waiting game, and I must wait for the bank to get back to me.
So.... Wish me luck. I may be buying the folks' old house.
The bitch of it all? I can't call mom and freak her out with the cool news. She'd love it. I know she would.