Finally a Homeowner

Some may have noticed I've been MIA for the last couple of months. After a year and a half of hunting, we finally found a house we liked that was in our price range and didn't get snatched up by someone paying 150% over asking in cash! It was supposed to close two months earlier than it did, leading to a lot of issues. Not the least of these was burning through most of our extra savings because we had to live out of a hotel for almost an entire month. Still, I am now a home owner with nearly an acre of yard to play with.

I'm already gainfully employed, making the same pay rate I did before, but with more opportunities to get raises. Our things are in storage limbo because the company keeps changing numbers every time we go to pay for delivery. They've quoted 300, which became 860, which they now claim is over 1100. The house is a fixer upper and all of my tools are in storage still, but none of this is me complaining. It's important to understand that despite all of the setbacks and difficulties, I couldn't be happier.

I watch the sunrise before work each morning. I get to watch my children laugh and play in a yard of their own. I get to see those same children having rooms of their own for the first time in their lives! We sit on the porch and discuss all of the plans for the property. There's space for a small orchard. There's a large area easily turned into a set of raised bed gardens. Part of the rear of the house has a spot ideal for an outdoor kitchen and there's already a burn area I will be turning into a more formal fire pit to enjoy. There are trees on the back half already including oak, walnut, hickory, and elm to name a few. There's even a small area that is just screaming to be turned into a small pond (also visible from the kitchen window).

I'm happy. Really happy. For almost the same payments as I was renting at, I get all of this. Where before there was a field of asphalt, there's now a beautiful yard. Where before there was roof that poured water into the house every storm that the landlord refused to fix properly, there's now a brand-new metal roof with a 50 year warranty. Instead of a sedentary job where I felt my mind slowly withering and my health deteriorating, I know have a job active enough that I am starting to lose weight (without needing to be sick) and my circulation has improved greatly. Once I can afford to get my things out of storage, I can start working on home improvements and after a few paychecks to re-establish my savings a bit, I can start making this place a small slice of permaculture joy.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Now you know where I have been. Hopefully once I get used to the physicality of this job, I won't be drained at the end of every day and can start being more present here again. I look forward to returning to full activity, as well as sharing the development of this new home.

Congratulations on your new home! It sounds wonderful!

I started working on a map of the property. As it is, this is just a simple layout of what is already there. It's going to eventually have a listing for both current and future elements in there.

Congratulations, D!! I can't wait to see what you do with it!!

Congratulations D. I didn't spot your thread earlier. Hopefully you've got your stuff back, can you shop around for a better removal quote?

Oooh! Can we play fantasy gardens?

The fire pit has been cleaned out and a fire ring added. Once I can get some benches built and put out there, it will be a great place to spend warm evenings.

It is amazing to be a first time homeowner!  I had similar thoughts to you when I moved into my first house.  Granted, we definitely have some life-differences, but still, just knowing that that is your own house is a wonderful feeling!!

I wish you luck in your remodeling and hope you can get the storage issue settled soon.  Your new home sounds beautiful.  Do you have any basic figures for your house?  Land area, etc.?  Not trying to pry, it just interesting to see what people plan to do with new properties.

I realize this is probably out of your budget right now, but when I was building my current house, and especially right after I moved into my current house, I wished I had a cheap tractor with a loader and a box blade.  Again, I have no idea what kind of acreage you have, but for my 9 acres and new construction and lots of debris left over, a yard to put in, plants to put in, etc., a loader would have done a lot of good work.  And a box blade really would have helped out with my driveway.

These are just a few of my rambling thoughts, but again, congratulations on your new house!!

Eric

Nancy Reading wrote:Congratulations D. I didn't spot your thread earlier. Hopefully you've got your stuff back, can you shop around for a better removal quote?

Oooh! Can we play fantasy gardens?

I did eventually get my things back. Unfortunately they broke a number of things and lost my entire tool box. I'm still working to replace the tools as money allows.

Fantasy garden planning is half of the fun. I already started some asparagus from seed (those take forever to sprout and grow enough to plant). I also just got an offer today from a business to give me all the things I need to build a lot of raised beds. Now I just need to find enough to fill them all with before planting season begins!

Eric Hanson wrote:Do you have any basic figures for your house?  Land area, etc.?  Not trying to pry, it just interesting to see what people plan to do with new properties.

The house is about 850 sq. ft. That doesn't include the lower area that is half crawl space and half open. The land is 0.8 acres, about 2/5ths or less wooded. As you can see from the map, there's an issue with a paved driveway for a neighbor on our property. Eventually we'd like to own something larger, but for now this gets us where we want to be and offers us a place to get started.

Thanks to some issues, the asparagus ended up dying. Sucks, but we'll try again next year after we have other things going. Our raspberry/blackberry living fence is well on its way and as the trees and guild plants arrive, we've been putting the orchard into place. Today we got the major vegetable raised bed laid out, but need to do some digging to level out the beds before we start adding the huge pile of soil that was delivered. Progress is slow since my day job keeps me away most of the daylight hours, but as the days get longer, we're getting more and more accomplished. Woo Hoo.

The berry bushes are all in place and about 1/3 are going strong. The rest are still anyone's guess. The last of this year's trees go in tonight and those that are already in have been doing amazingly well. Much to our surprise, the peach tree has 3 little fruit setting on it despite being little more than a stick. I haven't decided how to handle that yet. As to the garden beds, we will have the last of those filled and ready by our last frost date in a few days and planting can begin in earnest.

I also had the chance to take stock of some of the plants in our wooded area. The diversity of trees is higher than I would have expected. We knew about the walnut, the hickory, the maple, etc. There's also elder, elm, black locust, redbud, cherry, and many more back there. I can't wait to keep developing this property over time!