I Don't Get It?

What the heck are we doing taking on a project?

GREAT QUESTION!

When it comes to homes, we have never been good at taking on more than we can chew. Eventually we end up with a lot of "what-ifs" and "shoulda, woulda, couldas" and so on and so forth... But this just felt different.

Location, location, location.

One mile from Oweghn's school, a stone's throw from Kelan's. Next to Laurelhurst Park and part of a community - a walking, pedestrian, vibrant local economy that treats each solicitor (not pushing a grocery cart) as its neighbor.

For those on the west side, from whence we came, that is one of the biggest selling points - to stroll a couple of blocks and end up at a coffee shop, or Pine State Biscuits, or some food carts, or some eclectic shops and eateries that you just don't find in Suburbia.

Good bones.

As we walked through with the inspector (think of a more serious and laidback Peter Sellers), he noted the solid and reinforced infrastructure of the house. He noted the new electrical, the new ducting, the new furnace, the new plumbing, the tankless water heater, the RJ-45 and cabling in every room (anyone know how to set up a home network?) and after about two hours of peaking and peeling and digging knives and knocking and rattling and "hmm"-ing he looked deadpan at us and simply said, "I've got some bad news..."

I'm not sure how Di felt but I was a bit incredulous at this lead in after watching the inspection first hand... What could possibly be wrong?

The inspector continued, "I've got some dangers I need to warn you of about this neighborhood.."

We held our breath...

"Did you know there are about 50 great restaurants within walking distance of here?"

Sold! (To the Lady in the Second Row)

She's an 8, She's a 9, She's a 10 I know... Name that singer! Geez, I remember seeing him in concert at the Pendleton Round Up when he was in his prime...

But this picture says it all... Kelan buys his first house, yay! It is sort of weird but by Diana's calculations we have not been in a house longer than 5 years so we aren't sure what that portends but as Ewan McGregor sings in Moulin Rouge, Come What May!

Offer made, offer accepted, it is now officially time to start FREAKING OUT! So really, what is there to freak out about. Well, let's just say I'm not the handiest guy around and as Diana likes to remind me I like to keep pretty busy so when the heck would I have time to help manage this project? Great question, and to this point we haven't disclosed the "project" that this house is, so, therefore, if you had that knowledge, you might start freaking out too...

Part of the reason this house felt so open was because it was missing things like, well, a kitchen, a few stairs, y'know, things that help make a room look more, er, roomy. Here, let me share a quick list of the "to-dos:"

1. Replace wood floors (augh, horrible guilt about tearing out the inlays but the re-finishing of quarter inch decking just wasn't going to cut it).


2. A kitchen (a place to cook, keep things cold, store cans of garbanzo beans, watch the boys eat breakfast in the morning, create culinary delights, etc.)


3. Stairs (have you ever walked up a flight of stairs where each stair was a different height?)


4. Carpet (don't panic, we aren't doing the entire house, just the upstairs to keep it cozy).


5. Paint (really? It has to be this difficult to choose a painter?)


6. Windows (probably in stages but ooh-la-la are there some lessons on how not to install a replacement window here)


7. Chicken Coop - whoops, that will be for a later date and only if the boys remember I promised them one (and a dog).

Oh look, I've put one of the boys to sleep. As you can tell, we are taking a lot of photos to document the changes, the situations we get ourselves into, etc. Next post will share our Flickr album which will be mostly pics of the before...

Joy. Pain. Sunshine. Rain

Chapter 1

Ah, the joy of home ownership.
Ah, the pain of realizing your new home needs a bit of work.
Ah, the sunshine around the opportunity to build our own creation, our own kitchen.
Ah, the rain of bills and expenses to pay for that moment of sunshine...

I had little knowledge of what transformation my life would take once I stepped off the plane from Tennessee. Seriously, the trip to Tennessee was some sort of life-change portal. One day screaming at top of my lungs in one of the worst thunderstorms the Knoxville area has ever seen, a spot of Yell-O amidst a sea of Orange, watching the Ducks migrate all over the Volunteers. Next day looking at houses, looking at comps to gauge what we wanted to place an offer on.

And so as Diana and I wandered through houses with great curb appeal but little to offer inside, the contrast that this gem on Alder Street provided was palpable as time turn after turn I ran into neither walls nor doors, but open space... This house was interesting.

Diana was already quickly falling in love with it, but I could see the struggle of what the house could be with what it would take to get it there. We (I) don't have a great track record with projects, particularly those that aren't software related, but things just seemed different this time.

So we wrote up the offer and it was accepted and we were off to the races.