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| The money pit. |
Amy and I just bought a house today. It's name is [email me if you want the address], NE Portland OR 97211. It's a fixer. A major fixer. Kara heard someone leaving the house say "it looks like a bomb went off in there." So: a challenge With the diligent help of our realtor, Andrea Dufresne, it took us 4-5 months just to get the contract to buy it and another hard fought month to finance it (thank you Alpine Mortgage). There was much heartache and surprise, but we now officially own it. Amy is already buying appliances on craigslist (as she does).
Here's the plan: sink every last cent we have into this place to make it pretty and livable and maybe even worth something someday. In the mean time, attempt to avoid poisoning ourselves with lead paint and dust or letting other parts of our lives suffer.
I'm starting this blog for two reasons:
- my memory is terrible
- hopefully we can learn something from this.
I might share it with the greater world later.
Here are the abiding principles and answers to questions we get asked all the time:
- the house is a wreck (foundation, chimney, lead paint, roof, insulation, windows, are all screwed.)
- we bought it from a guy who bought it from the estate of a woman who recently died (in the house, mind you). He initially wanted to flip it but found other things to do and decided to sell it to us (eventually).
- we've never done anything like this before.
- if this starts to tear our relationship apart or cause undo stress, we sell this place -- half finished or not. It's not worth making ourselves miserable. Well, not too miserable, anyway.
- we're fortunate enough to be able to keep our current place in the Alberta neighborhood. We'll be living here until the new house is a little less smelly and poisonous and we'll rent it out when we move. We're pretty confident that we can get a good price for the rental.
We're expecting this project to end when we're "done" or when we run out of money. We have drawings, priorities, etc. It'll be fun.
Lets get started. First thing is where we're at, some pictures, etc.
