So, I hate being unoriginal. What I mean to say is that I hate copying from friends ideas, but I'm going to do just that. My friends Jeff and Derek have a blog called "
Half a House" where they have described various home improvement projects as well as told about the interesting natural (and unnatural) disasters they've encountered while renovating their home. My friend Tracy has a blog too that describes her adventures of living between two houses called "
House in the Country, House in Town." SO, I want to do something similar as a way to document our transition to living in the country and changes and improvements we are making.
On the weekend of December 21, 2008 (with a 26' long moving truck and lots of help from supportive friends), Julianne and I moved out of our charming Tudor style house in Kansas City to 1300 County Road B just northeast of Liberty, Missouri (just 1 mile from William Jewell College, where I work!) In a nutshell, we had put our City house on the market in September of the same year and had an offer in December and the closing was December 21!
We had been looking at houses in the historic district of Liberty (just off the quaint town square). We had narrowed our selection to one house that seemed to have it all (and a few problems to work out, but we like a challenge). It had location, historic charm, enough rooms, and room to expand. The problem was, the day we got the offer on our city house, the Liberty house had been taken off the market and they were not accepting any offers! So it was back to the drawing board. We scheduled a full day of house hunting with our "Mean Realtor" (she likes that name) Kathy (kathyandkellisoldit.com) who willingly took us on a 6 hour adventure in house looking from the wilds of South liberty suburban McMansionville to Graceland (a house that had to have been remodeled after the King's estate!)
One house in particular was saved for last and that was 1300 County Road B... in the country... with 3 acres of land... 5+bedrooms... and new wrap around deck! Um...Kathy, can we afford this? She confirmed that the details on the MLS sheet were correct. We pulled into the circle drive, through the stone and wood gate and thought..."could this be the one?"
It turned out to be the one! We made an offer and then counter offer and then another counter offer and went through over a 2 weeks of negotiations (foundation repairs, septic tank inspections (yummy!) Radon mitigation, riding lawn mower inclusion, etc.) and finally were scheduled to close on the sale of the city house and also the purchase of the country house on Dec. 21. The paperwork for our VA loan (Julianne qualified due to her 8 years of service) was not ready on the 21st, so we postponed until the 22. In the meantime we had to be out of our old house by noon on the 21st. We didnt find out until 2:30 when we were in our closing that the seller was going to allow us to move in early! So, we were able to spend our first night in the new house on the 21st. I had moved the moving truck to the new house the night before (we didnt trust leaving a truck with all of our belongings on the street in our old neighborhood!) Let's jus say, after a long and very cold day of loading the truck, the drive to Liberty was a little scary. But the fun doesnt stop there! I pulled into the circle drive and hit the powerline with the truck, ripping it down from the pole at the street...had to call the power company to come re-hook it at 10:30 on the negative 4 degree night!
We had friends (and some of my awesome students) help us unload the truck Tuesday! It didnt take as long to unload as it did to load! Christmas was a world full of boxes...trying to find my socks...trying to find pieces to Julianne's computer...we at least knew where the coffee pot was; I made sure of that! Long (yes I know I said..in a nutshell) story short...we "squatted" at the house for over two weeks not signing closing paperwork until January 6thm 2009! If the seller had not allowed us to move in, we would have been homeless for over two weeks and possibly would have lost the deal! It was pretty scary for a couple of weeks! We paid the seller $25 a day to live there until we got it official!
Well. Now that you know the context of our story, the next blog entry will get to the fun part...the redecorating and renovating! We have been at the new place about 4 weeks and have accomplished so much already! So stay tuned! We have lots of work to do and will surely take lots of pictures!!!
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A new year! A new house! A new blog!
2 comments:
Hello Nathan! (It's me, Corrie!) I enjoyed reading about your big move! I love Liberty and like reading about it. I miss living there on a regular basis, although I have to say I prefer the warmer climate of Florida! I have a blog too, you can get there from here. (I don't publish the address on Facebook- only certain friends know about it!) It can be super fun blogging and also a huge time sink. But it's definitely a way to have some fun and inject yourself into this big ole' internet world. And it is very fun to peek into others lives! (As long as they're not too icky.) Have fun! I'll see you around here!
N&J - it's great to have you in Liberty again! Now we need to make time to come over and visit again. Keep up the postings! The girls will be very excited to read about your new home!!
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