The great project before us!

I am sorry for the months it has been since my last post. I know you may not believe me, but my husband and I have been filling our spare time with our secret project. And yes, it has been over the course of MONTHS! (FYI: we lovingly call it our 30 year project...if that tells you anything.) The process started at the beginning of August.

To find out what it is, you have to go down this long driveway...

Can you see it yet? Then you have to go through this field. In 2013, it was planted in soybeans, but 2014 maybe corn...or maybe feeder calves. We shall see!

Anyway, once you get to the other end of that long driveway, you pass through the trees, and come upon this gem!

That is right ladies and gents, we bought us a house...well really, its like a mini farm. We have almost 11 acres of woods, yard and field. Most of it is woods, and goes down to a lovely creek that lets itself out into the Little Miami River.

The couple we purchased this from own another 200 acres surrounding us. Mostly fields, but over 80 acres of woods as well. 

We had been looking for something in a 60 mile radius with a bit of land since we got married (we realistically thought 1-5 acres with our budget). Its been a slow search, because, well we are rather picky. Thank goodness our Realtor friend was patient with us, and knew it would take us a while.

In three years, we looked at a total of three houses. Yep, three. We wanted an older home with character, and an outbuilding or room to build one. (We need work and storage space for all our projects!) All of them were at least 100 years old. The first two were both on 1 acre lots. And then we stumbled on this one. 

I mean it when I say stumbled. We randomly went for a drive down roads in some of the farm country we had always liked in our area. We didn't go down the road this house was on (in fact, I had never been down this road, ever!) 

I went home, with a few addresses of houses for sale to look up "just for fun" because most of them would be way beyond our price range. All of a sudden, I saw this humble white house as a listing, read the price and the description (almost 11 acres and outbuildings...are you kidding me??) That night we emailed our Realtor, and the next day we had an appointment to go see it. One thing we didn't know until the day we looked at it: that was the first day it had been listed online. 

We looked at the property with eyes of two young goons, who thought we could conquer the world and this could be our castle. One plastered wall at a time, we knew we could make her beautiful again! (Yes, that "summer kitchen" is, well...leaning a bit.)

The house had great structure and bones. It just had not been loved the way it could have been.

Here is a picture of the largest barn. Its still full of stuff, but we will get to it this spring. We had to work on the inside first, and then we will work our way outside. 

After seeing the house, we set up an appointment for the next day to see it again. This time, we asked both sets of parents to come along. Both have lived in older houses and dealt with the world of work that comes with them. We wanted some experienced opinions on if we would be getting in too deeply or not. 

 It helped to have them there. Though we knew we would be biting off a lot, we knew we could ask the right people for insight (even if they were unable to help us with the actual work.) We decided to put in an offer. Did I mention at this point...it had been on the market for 3 DAYS?!?!? (This is 2013, most houses were still taking 100+ days to sell.) With our offer, I submitted a letter to the current owners. I wanted them to know the plans we had to bring it back to a stage of glory, that our future children would enjoy the space it brought with it, and we would work hard to continue the tradition of family that had been ingrained in this place. 

Two days went by where we heard nothing. And then, we were told there were multiple offers on the table. Are you kidding me?? It hadn't been for sale for a week, but we had multiple offers to contend with? We should have known, because most properties with similar sq footage and acreage were going for another $50-100K. (Hence the reason it was actually affordable to us!) We were a bundle of nerves. We knew this was the place we wanted to be. 

We waited out the next weekend. We waited out Monday. Then on Tuesday, we got a counter offer! We found out weeks later after meeting them, that they actually chose us because they liked our letter. We have no idea if we were actually the highest offer, but that really didn't matter to them. Praise the Lord for prompting me to write that letter! 

Did I mention we have an outhouse as well? Conveniently located about 10 yards from the house. So glad its close, considering today its -1 degrees, but feels like -20F. 

Okay, there is an inside toilet too. :-)

Lots more to come...I cant spill all the beans at once.