After a defeating appointment with a structural engineer last week regarding the little blue bank re-po house in Hometown, we decided that maybe a full-haul renovation for profit was not our first choice anymore. Several factors, most notably the impending changing of seasons, swayed our decision. The other was a visit to an old farmstead about 10 minutes from town centre here in our village. I had just happened upon the listing, as it didn't stand out too much from other listings in price nor scale of home. The thing that almost slipped by was that this house had 135 acres attached to it, which surprisingly was not reflected in the asking price. Thinking it was too good to be true, we visited the exterior this past weekend. Memories dawned on me as I had already visited the house when it was previously occupied by a tenant, and so I knew the place was far from uninhabitable. A further stroll around the grounds yielded discovery after discovery; a charming circular grassy driveway, a lawn surrounded by giant spruce trees and decorated with impressive elms, a creek that runs just behind the house that may be large enough to harness hydro-power (at least for part of the year), multiple out-buildings including a gigantic barn with impressively straight roof lines and tons of old barn beams, a 100-year-old orchard, a blueberry field beyond that, raspberry bushes, a bunny rabbit or two (seriously!) and a peaceful view out the front porch to the Bay. Seriously. So we called up the listing agent, fully expecting a "sorry, just sold it last week, haven't been out to remove the sign yet" (which has happened on three different occasions already) BUT we were in luck. Still for sale. So we called up our realtor and she let us in later that night - basically it is a huge old farmhouse that was built in three stages. The first stage had a front den, formal dining room and kitchen with stairs leading to four bedrooms. This was prior to indoor plumbing, so when that modern luxury was introduced, a second phase was built which created an extra-large kitchen/pantry/sunporch off the existing smaller kitchen, turning it into the formal dining room and creating a front den/back den out of the former dining area and den area. Then upstairs, a walk-through room was added that lead to a small & awkward bathroom. Finally a third phase, which we suspect started out as a stable of some sort, created a further bedroom/storage area at the back. All in all, 2400 square feet, 6 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. About the exact opposite of a tiny 500 square foot home. I suspect there will be some disagreements between my husband and I in the coming months about what should stay and what should go: I would be in favour of sacrificing historical aspects of the house in order to reduce the foorprint into a more liveable (and clean-able!) house. This may include moving the gigantic kitchen back into the smaller room, consistent with original footprint of the house. This would reduce the amount of dens from two to one, and still provide a formal dining room (which I would also prefer to open up to the kitchen as a single flowing room- again, not very historically accurate but more in keeping with our preferred way of living). He would like to keep the first and second phase of the house with minimal re-arrangements (perhaps bringing the upstairs bath to a more central location or adding a half-bath downstairs somewhere).
This of course is all contigent on money. We were able to get the sellers to agree to 130 K instead of 150 K. But the plaster walls, crumbling shingles (overlaid onto old-school cedar shingles), thermal pane windows and oil heating system will all have to go eventually. Hubby and I talked about living in the gigantic house for one season (winter, unfortunately) to decide how best to re-arrange for our lifestyles. I've also been educating myself about the energy rebates for retro-fits, which I notice tend to be much more generous than the incentives offered to new-home builders.
And the bunnies! I'm excited about the land as well. Considering acreage tends to sell for +/- $1000 an acre around here, paying 130K for 135 acres PLUS a useable house is fine by me. I should buy my realtor some flowers. (Update: makes it seem like there will be something seriously flawed with this structure. I'm optimistic though- the listing agent AND the seller are from away...plus my agent is good. That doesn't mean we won't spend an arm and a leg fixing up, but I'm prepared for that part. Especially if the large repairs can be paid for by the savings).
So now the next journey of home-owning will happen: how to transfer our skill set form building
a new house to fixing up an old house. I heart Bob Villa!?!
The front of the house as seen from the drive-way:
The side (creek along the left-hand side of this picture):
Den #2 window
Big "phase two" kitchen:
Den #1 fireplace:
Stairwell:
Massive barn:
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