so for weeks I have been sharing bits and pieces of our new/old house with you.. but decided it was time to do a full on blog post. So the story behind this house..
We have been looking for about 3 years to either add on or move. EVERY spring we get it in our minds that we NEED more space. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our current home.. but we have 3 bedrooms, ONE living/family room, ONE shower/bathroom and 8 people. Just doesn't work for us! Ben and I obviously share a room, Allie being the only girl and 12.. nearly 13.. has her own room. and the other five boys? Well.. we have madeup room for them. lol. Braden and Parker share a room in the basement (really it's a storage room).. and they share amongst all of our food storage.. buckets of wheat and flour and pasta. pretty funny. Ethan and Noah share a room and until recently shared a room with Preston.. until he decided he could no longer live with those two messy boys and moved his stuff up to this room off of allies room that is more of a storage room (you can't stand up in it lol).. and now he has is "own" room. Having one shower really poses as a problem for the 8 of us.. and having my laundry room IN the kitchen and main bathroom is hard too. Plus we only have one living/family room.. so we all gather in the same place ALL the time. We truly need more space. So each year we go and drive and look and we always seem to find nothing that inspires us. We have always loved the idea of buying or building new.. tired of buying old houses and fixing them up.. but then we always chicken out because we just don't like the fact new houses and new subdivisions don't have trees or landscape or history. So then it's back to the drawing board.. finding an old house that maybe has already been redone. It's not that we can't do the work. We can. Ben has either remolding or built every house we have owned. It's what he used to do for a living before we started our kit club. So we know how.. it's just we wanted something move in ready.
SO each year we would look on the MLS in shelley for houses. Now considering the fact shelley only has 3000 people in it and there are usually no more than 20 houses for sell on the market at any given time.. there really usually isn't much choice. So up until now..we have been frustrated and nothing working out. WELL one day a few months ago.. ben came home and said there is this old house he wanted to show me. And the minute he said "old" i was like. NO. we aren't doing that.. Remember? And he said.. JUST COME LOOK. I was skeptical because I had SEEN everything on the market and I thought I knew exasctly what house he was talking about and I was thinking.. um no. BUT it was sunday afternoon and why not right? So we went on a drive.. drove down this road that is ride by the lake ramp.. that we always boat at.. and as we pulled up.. I had this feeling.. deep in my gut this would be our home.. I KNEW it..
We pulled up to the driveway.. and ben said to me" I know this house is going to be a TON of work. TONS of work.. so look past all the flaws.. and just see the potential.. I know you will hate it.. but just think about it. It has a big yard.. 6 acres actually, tons and tons of trees, its out in the country.. right by the lake, no neighbors. It has 3 out building/garages we can put our business in.. It has a pool (run down mind you).. tennis court/basketball courts (again.. so run down lol).. an outdoor fire pit (which intrigued me).. and an ART studio.. (um what? what did you say? an art studio??) of course my ears perked up right away! and then we pulled into the drive.. through the front gates.. and my heart went thump.
I was IN LOVE.. with the property.. Trees as far as you could see.. HUGE open spaces.. small intimate forests.. 6 acres of completely landscaped beautiful beautiful land..
and then reality hit.. the house was built in 1938 (didn't know it at the time but found out later.. and hasn't been redone since 1960's).. the pool was a MESS, the tennis courts were a mess,
the grounds were overgrown..
the ARt studio.. (Above and the following pictures below).. well it actually was a pool house on side.. complete with a sauna shower and bathroom.. and the OTHER side.. that used to be a mancave, where he played poker games with his buddies.. ANOTHER sauna and another bathroom that had a HUGE giant Roman tub in it.. seriously so weird.i don't even want to know..
(um yes.. that is the art studio ben was so excited to show me..)
there was LAVA rock everywhere..
not that lava rock is bad.. but oh my heck the spiders.. I actually loved the fire pit area.. I didn't care if it was lava rock.. to me it was just simply cool. We also found out that the single farmer lived in the house from 1970 until he died a couple of years ago and left the house, his farm and all his belongings to his church who had since sold everything EXCEPT the house.. which they couldn't seem to get rid of.
it was going to be a TON OF WORK!! just to get it liveable.. AND that didn't include the fact that the house wasn't big enough and we would need to add on (it again.. only had 3 bedrooms lol).. We didn't get to go inside that day.. infact there was someone else there with their realtor looking at the house when we pulled up.. but I was DYING to know how much it cost.. because with that much land.. I KNEW it was WAY WAY out of our price range.. way out. way out lol.. but despite it all.. I wanted it so bad. It seriously felt like home.
So we drove home and I immediately got in the MLS again and searched and searched and couldn't find it.. and had figured that's why I had never seen it before. Finally we just called our realtor and asked.. and then we got both good news and bad news.. the good news was.. it was actually UNDER our price range.. (which shocked me.. and we ended up actually getting it for even 40K cheaper than the asking price.. it seriously was so run down.. had been on the market for a year.. or longer and NO one would touch it.. way too much work). But the bad news was.. it wasn't in Shelley School district and there was NO way we were moving out of shelley. WE LOVE shelley, LOVE the schools.. love our wards/stakes there and that was a must for us. It was our Be all, end all. So that was it. Didn't matter anyway.. because we couldn't buy it. BUT out of curiosity.. we decided to go the next day and just take a look at the inside.. lol.. (oh baby.. just wait)..
so this is the actuall house house..
big gorgeous windows actually
the red room .. isn't the kitchen.. OH no.. it's actually the canning room and "bbq" room for the farmer.. and all of his fancy parties he had.. (we have since heard so many cool and unique stories about this farmer and his life and the parties and events and weddings and things that were held on this property.. but he himself never did get married.. single his entire life)..
I am actualy in LOVE with this red sink.. keeping it for my art studio :) everyone thinks Im crazy.. I am in love.
This is the kitchen..
Yes folks.. that is floor to ceiling TILE.. in cream.. and SHINY GOLD :)
the dining Room (which I LOVE.. the originally hardwood floors are still in it.. just want to change out the tile and the wood stove to something a bit more modern)
the living room.. HUGe and open.. right off the dining room and kitchen. LOVE the beams.. (not so much on the velvet curtains.. that close automatically when you flip a switch.. he must have been a real ladies man)..
Love the view into the dining room and kitchen from there. Those railings are coming down.. as well as the walls in the kitchen..
the rest are bathrooms and bedrooms and downstairs..
he really loved wallpaper and tile and barn wood.. all bedrooms had wallpaper in them.. which I kept large pieces of by the way.. to do art with..
and more barnwood.. (gonna keep it all and make furnture out of it for my art studio!!)
funky orange and cream and black bathroom. WHICH I personally think is awesome for a boy..
but they don't really like the short black toilet much. lol. All the toilets look like that.. they are all just different colors.
Then the out building/garages.. are PERFECT for us and our cars (having 3 kids soon with drivers licence.. and a place to put our warehouse!!) So ben can be at hOME with us everyday.. blessings blessings..
It also comes complete with its own dinner bell
now that actually is pretty cool..
but after seeing it all.. as much as I could SEE the potential.. I could SEE all of it being stripped and loved and redone.. and this beautiful diamond in the rough.. a place.. a little piece of heaven for us and our family.. and friends to enjoy. It was not in our school district and not in shelley! Well i swear almost instantly we got a phone call from a friend who worked at the school and apparently the school district lines were just seriously a 100 yards away and the house down the street WAS in shelley and the shelley school bus stopped there everyday.. and drove right past our house .. and would be willing to stop and get our kids too. AND since it was open enrollment.. we could have our kids stay in shelley. ALSO the ward we were in.. was still in a shelley stake.. and we would be in a ward with some of our kids best friends! And probably the best part of it all.. was that it just felt like home. So we seriously put an offer that day.. on the house. It was a bit of a bidding war.. and even though it was well under our price range.. that price range was for a move in ready house.. not a house we would need to spend $$ dollars redoing, gutting and adding onto to make it our own. eventually we settled on a price.. and it was ours.. HOME sweet home.
our realtor at closing actually told the title company how she thought we were crazy for buying this place.. because it needed SO much work.. but we are in love. Everyday I wake up i seriously say to my myself.. I LOVE that house! Of course we won't be moving in until it's done.. which since we are doing it all ourselves.. will hopefully be before christmas.. but that makes me love it even more! The other day while ripping off all the old tile in the kitchen.. I found the most wonderful floor underneath.. and it just made me smile.. that this new/old house has all the charm and love i knew it did.. just hidden under years of needing a woman's touch. (no offense men :)).
I just can't wait. Like I said in tuesday's post.. or maybe it was today's.. this post is so long I have already forgotten.. but Ben and my boys and their friends have already gutted then entire house (well most of it) AND My studio.. tore down walls.. took out the Roman tub.. I know.. I was thinking of keeping it.. so when people came to do art.. we could all hang out in the tub together and pretend it was a hot tub.. but no. Decided against it.. lol
no only kidding. but want a huge open art studio. so taking down the wall between the bathroom and the sauna.. the mancave side (leaving the pool house side).. but those walls are already down! (gonna keep the sink and toilet/closet in the studio for lots of reason.. lol)
Already been dreaming and starting to collect things for the studio. Lots of pinterest.. getting ideas of things I want to build or make. Its gonna be larger than what I have now and I want to have room enough for at least 8-10 people to be in doing art at one time. For my kids.. friends.. or even small retreats there. (Which by the way.. we are SERIOUSLY talking about having one this fall at the studio.. since that will be the first thing done).. gonna post about that soon if we do.
anyhow.. thanks for letting me share our new/old house with you. I am in love with it. The reason why we never saw it before was because the timing just wasn't right. It just so happened ben had been driving past that way (we never drive down that far when we go to the lake.. because it's on the other side of the ramp).. but he had been driving down there with parker on his way home from the movies and parker saw it.. so ben stopped and took a look. I always tell parker HE ROCKS for finding our house. The kids love it by the way.. they can play for hours and get lost in all the mini forests around.. over 200 trees on the property.. AND 2 resident owls and ONE resident SKUNK (which ben is considering catching and taking out the stinker and leaving it as a pet.. um.. yeah.. we will talk about that one)...
anyhow.. fun to share.. I will post again about it maybe in a month.. to show you the progress!!
Happy thursday!
