Our Most Stupid Mistake Ever

Even if that title read our mostest stupidest mistake ever, it still wouldn’t begin to describe the event that I’m referring to.  It was a decision that turned into a bit of a nightmare, to say the least.  And what was that decision you ask?  Buying this house.  Now that doesn’t sound so bad does it?  Well, have you ever seen the movie The Money Pit?  We had our own little version of the money pit, but didn’t start out with the huge, beautiful house that fell apart.  We started with the ugliest house you could find.  Oh, we were so young and stupid, so optimistic and stupid, so naive and stupid – well you get the idea. 

 

We bought this house at a very questionable  time – 3 months after we were married.  We got married in June of 2003.  We ran off to California and eloped (sorry to say this out loud, but I hate weddings.  Not that I hate if any of you want to have a wedding, just please don’t make me have one.  I’m not going to get started on this, as this could be a whole other post).  We got married on Friday the 13th – that should have been our first clue.  Anyway, back to the story.  I think we may have been high on California or something (we’re from MN), but when we got back we knew we had to make a decision on where to live.  I had a house in Willmar and Joel had an apartment an hour away.  We decided to try to find something in between, as I was dragging my feet at moving away.  We ended up finding something closer to (my) home, but the compromise was that it was on a lake (which Joel wanted).  The only way we could afford to live on a lake was to buy a fixer-upper.  We figured we could handle it.  After all, we had remodeled my basement when we were dating and had been dubbed “the crafty couple” – (I quilt, Joel builds furniture, and together we fixed up a house).  We just had that – “we can do it attitude”.  That attitude got us into trouble.  We decided we could live with this -

Front Exterior of our wonderful, new home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful retaining wall in front yard

 

 

We thought  we could  just go one room at a time

 

 

Kitchen on move in day

 

And live in it while we fixed it

 

Doesn't it look like the 1970s came to visit and threw up all over our kitchen?

 

And I could work in it while we fixed it

 

 

 And we can totally redo this house for $5o,000

 

Fireplace in upstairs living room

 

And it should only take a year or so.  We can do all those things ourselves!   (I watch HGTV, so that should be no problem)

 

Master bedroom

 

 

Did I mention, young and stupid?  Things didn’t really work out as we had planned.  The house needed so much more work than we first thought.  We began to realize the full extent of what we had gotten ourselves into.

 

Master closet complete with mirror style (walls and ceiling)

 

 It turned into doing sections of the house at a time (it’s kind of hard to carpet one room at a time, or drywall one room at a time, or trim one room at a time, etc.  It’s not very efficient!)

 

Master bath - please notice that as a guy, you have to stand to the side of the toilet to pee. Very tiny!

 

And dusting off your dinner before you ate it, or dusting off your clothes before you put them on, or moving the table saw from in front of your bed before you can go to sleep, etc. 

 

 

Dining Room

 

 And storing my quilting under a plastic tarp, or sewing at the dining room table (if I could find it), or asking a quilt shop if I could call them back as an air compressor is blaring in the background. 

 

 

 

So, things didn’t really go as planned and I won’t tell you what to multiply that $50,000 by.  Let’s just say I should never be in charge of estimating the cost of remodeling.

 

 

 

And after all that, working every night and every weekend (practically) for 4 years straight until you think you can’t take it anymore!  Sounds like fun right???   WRONG. 

 

 Thanks goodness we knew lots of people with valuable skills and knowledge.  Our parents were such great help, with all their past experiences with houses.   We had a few friends that were carpenters, or building inspectors, or an electrician or plumber.  And, just when we thought we couldn’t handle anymore, my brother quilt his construction job and got his contractors license.  Now we knew someone that could take over the rest of the jobs that we didn’t have the energy or will to finish. 

 

As 2009 begins, I am so grateful that that time in our lives is over.  We survived and learned a valuable lesson.  We are NEVER doing that again.  We are also enjoying the results of our sweat equity, despite the fact that we have spent our life savings on it.  We now have a home to call our own, full of memories – maybe more bad memories than most people’s homes have, but they are fading.  I’ll compare it to childbirth –  Though I have no personal experience with this, everyone says it’s torture, but you soon forget it.  That feeling of living through something that has gone terribly wrong, isn’t there anymore.  We are just grateful to be done and  to have what so many others don’t.  There are so many people living in other countries who will never have the “opportunity” to remodel their own house.  It’s not so bad after all, right? .  .  .  .  .  .   To be continued.  .  .  .  .

 

P.S. – I can’t say that I recommend watching HGTV.  It helps encourage that “can do attitude”.  It encouraged me to do things that I may not have had any business doing. :-)

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