Thursday, September 13, 2012

How this all got started

For whatever reason for as long as I can remember I have LOVED old houses.  Maybe it was growing up in beautiful Columbus, Texas.  Eventually dreams fade and you grow up.  I got married and really never thought having an old house would be a possibility considering we settled in Red Oak, Texas where there's maybe three old houses in the whole city.  Haha  Then came the day where I found an old house for sale in a near by city but the same school district.  I thought "hmmm" could I really do this?  Would my husband agree? Joe did agree well actually I think he just went along. We started the loan process and in the mean time a house in downtown Red Oak came available. Meet said house built in 1910: (MLS picture)




I wasn't sure because I already had my heart set on this other house that didn't need repainting or any work done on the inside.  The downside, there was no true master bedroom, lacked closet space and we weren't sure how to work out our office situations since we both office from home and as silly as it may seem to some people all the wood was painted white...  Yeah, I know.  The other house was on two acres but no real landscaping, no fence and no place for the kids to ride bikes or scooters because it was on a busy road.  What to do?  What to do?  So, my husband convinced me we needed to go look at this house.  It happened to be my birthday. (September 2nd)

Ironically two things happened.  One I realized I use to drive by this house taking my daughter to dance a few years before and loved it every time I drove by.  I specifically went down this street just to see this house.  Like I said there's not many old houses in Red Oak.  Number two Joe fell in love with this house.  When we walked through the house I was thinking to myself "yeah that's ok, I don't know" This definitely had a true master.  A huge bathtub that I now call my princess tub and two office spaces each on the opposite side (very important) under the eaves because this bedroom was an attic conversion. 



Bath tub!  Downside?  Horrible carpet and wallpaper with a very strange window unit to nowhere.  



There is nowhere to plug it in.  Seriously.  It still sits in the wall as of now.


The other thing it did have, baseboards that were stained not painted (everywhere but the kitchen), solid wood original doors, original wood floors, original fire places, a one year old air conditioner, entire house re-plumbed, a well for watering and the most important thing for the kids a POOL.  But like I said I had my heart set on this other house.  I couldn't see past it.  I would just pray and pray and pray for the other house.  It was all I could think about.  Did I mention this other house was 50,000 more?  Huge downside. I talked to their realtor about the offer. They were only willing to come down 10,000 and no closing costs.  (That house had been on and off the market for three years) Thank God we had to pay a few things off first before we could get the loan.  That gave me a couple weeks for God and my husband to knock some sense into me.  

We made an offer with our awesome realtor Tracie. They accepted and we finalized the contract on our daughter's birthday September 16th.