We finally found home. After months of searching, we found a place that we both liked and could afford. It’s not huge, but has potential. It’s in a good area. Just outside a large housing development, but we don’t have any ‘close’ neighbors to annoy us, or, more than likely, be annoyed by us. We are 1.5 miles from a Super Wal-Mart (not sure if that’s a good thing or not), and a Lowe’s, and there’s a new Kroger going in about 1/2 mile away.
It’s 2 bedroom, 1 bath, and only 1200 square feet. But, it has a 1200 square foot unfinished basement, and a 680 square foot unfinished attic. We’ll definitely finish the attic, and possibly a part of the basement. I like the basement unfinished because it makes a great workshop. If we finish everything, it’ll be over 3000 square feet. I can live with that.
It’s just over a full acre in size. That’s good and bad. Good because it gives us plenty of room to do things, like plant a large garden, have a 70 yard archery range, have room for a small pool for the kids, and more. The downside is, it takes me an hour and a half to mow it. On a riding lawn mower. That doesn’t include trimming the places that the riding mower can’t get to. That’s about $4 in gas just to mow the lawn. It’s worth getting used to though.
We are next to a large housing development, but have open fields on 3 sides of us. The only neighbor we have we haven’t actually seen yet. A couple shots of the view from our front porch:
We also have a small one car garage that has an attached workshop that will eventually be Teresa’s glass studio. Next to it is another building that has the well head, pressure vessel, and holds garden storage stuff.
It has a small dog run area with a dog house. Given my past history, I’m sure I’ll be spending plenty a night there.
There are a couple play areas for the boys too:
Last weekend I tilled a spot for Teresa’s garden. We put up a fence around it today to keep the numerous rabbit’s in the nearby fields out of it. Haven’t seen any deer in the area yet, but I’m sure they are lurking. There are at least 3 apple trees, 2 cherry trees, a possible plum tree or two, and wild strawberries all over the place. We also have a couple very large Mulberry trees that are dropping Mulberries all over the place. And yes, Mulberry juice stains.
Overall, we love the place. It’s a bit of work getting the yard into shape, but feels good to be able to get something done that’s ‘yours’.
Here you can see a good satellite overhead of the property before we owned it. The black car in the lower left corner pretty much marks the back corner of the property line. Our property line runs about 15 feet from our only neighbor’s house. Across the Gravel road, and below us are both large empty fields. It’s nice being close to everything you need, but not having people live close enough that you can’t dance naked in the rain. 😉
You can see the house in the upper right corner, then the ‘well house’, then the garage below that. We plan on trimming back the trees quite a bit as they are either overgrown or dead. Should keep me busy for a day or two… 🙂
I’ve already planned about $10,000 in changes, and Teresa is ahead of me by at least $30,000, so I’d better get back to work.