New Old House

I actually managed it: I purchased my own home, by myself, something I'd almost thought was impossible these days. Of course, I couldn't afford anything in or near the city I grew up in, I had to move to a far cheaper area across the state, where jobs pay less, but I budgeted for multiple scenarios and my house does have a spare room so taking a roommate is an option if things get tight. I couldn't move in until I had a job, so for the first few months I continued living with my parents and took my time moving furniture.

So now I have a new (very old, actually) house, new job, new community. And a lot of work to do with it alone.

The roof is old, but will probably last a few more years. Storage space is... tight. It was the smallest frame house on the market (nothing wrong with trailers, but the idea of having both a mortgage and rent, and not having space for even a garden, didn't sound like an improvement to me) with no garage. There's an 80ft tree in the backyard that may be dying, but my more immediate plant concern is the knotweed that is alarmingly close to my foundation. Anyone have any ideas on controlling knotweed without poison, by the way? Everything I read says it's impossible.

My basement has a dirt floor — it's essentially an extra-deep crawlspace, what we call a Michigan basement, and so not very useful for storage. I was a little annoyed by that at first, but it turned out to save me this spring when so much of the region flooded. Almost everyone I know around here had their basement fill with water, with the sole exception of someone who had just had it sealed last year, so having nothing down there to be damaged meant I was probably the best off out of everyone.

I have just under half an acre total, which is large for being (just barely) within city limits. I won't be keeping any large livestock, but for just myself I don't really need to. I still have quail, which is technically questionable under city zoning, but my next door neighbors with their 12 dogs aren't going to complain, and someone down the street has a definitely illegal chicken rooster. I've considered possibly keeping rabbits as well? Meat rabbits? Not sure yet. Again, high production is not necessary, and I probably need another freezer first anyway. I'm starting to plan out my garden and mini orchard now; I want a row or two of fruit trees and  some perennials, and the soil will need much work, and I may have to consider how the water and sunlight will change if the old tree has to come down...

Over all, I don't regret it. I have a lot of maintenance and repair work to do, and some organizational challenges (putting up shelves will help! Maybe eventually I'll even have a garage), but I can make all those decisions myself.

Congratulations!

Exciting news for you.  Its good that you're figuring out what needs dealt with now and what can wait a few years.  The roof will be an expensive endeavour when the time comes but it sounds like you've got some time to figure that out.  I wonder if you could store certain things down below seasonally, like when there's not much rain, and then move that stuff later once rain starts again and maybe you have a shed or something to transfer it to by then.

Congratulations, Cal.  We all have to start somewhere, and I think you made the right decision.  Start where you can with what you have available and build gradually to abundance.  Certainly beats the "woe is me, the world is too mean to me" attitude that seems to hold so many people back.

If money is tight, you need to be inventive.  Find an old barn or garage that you can tear down to salvage materials for sheds, chicken coop or chicken tractor, rabbit hutches, or whatever else you may need.  Look at Craigslist, FB Marketplace, Freecycle, and other sources for free stuff.  If you have a truck or trailer, advertise for garage, storage shed, or basement cleanouts.  Usually, you can get paid to haul away other people's junk and drop off things you can use at your place before taking the trash to the dump.  I've found amazing things on those gigs, some items I was able to resell for cash.

Don't try to do everything at once or you'll burn out fast.  Repair or replace what's broken, but make do with everything else until you know exactly what you need.  Then ask yourself, "How can I afford this?  What are my options?" and chose where you are going to spend your limited funds to get the most value possible.

Good luck and God bless.

Well done!
Some photos will be nice.
Earthen floors in 'basements' can be good. How high is the ceiling?
I shared homes I owned with a boarder for 20 years when I was 25 or so, it helps with the cash flow and socially is nice also.
I was careful how I selected house mates, had rules;
- shared food
- no loud music
- shared cooking and cleaning
- had to have a job
- had to invite somebody over for dinner from time to time.
It was good fun and I developed good friends to this day.

Great news, Cal -  All of your careful planning that brought you this far now starts a new chapter!

As for knotweed, that is a gnarly opponent. The heavy duty poisons (yuck) and professional excavation ($$$$$) are not attractive options.... so maybe you will consider the biodynamic option presented by Rudolph Steiner.... which is admittedly out on the fringe even in the world of permies... but I have found it to work well and to be reliable over time, so I can recommend it to you with confidence. And using this method is not expensive / unpleasant / burdensome, so the only potential downside might be the effort to stretch belief systems...

It is a fortunate time of year for this approach - knotweed flowers in August, and makes little winged seedpods.  Gather as many as you can, and burn them into ash. (Steiner had a lot of detail about when to do this with astrological implications - I have not actually researched that, so can't vouch for that part). Scatter the ash lightly across the area where the plants are.
This process needs to be repeated each late summer / early autumn.
Steiner says the effect begins in the second year and completely eradicates the plant by the 4th year.

In the meantime, you can weedeater the plants... or even better, borrow a goat or two for a day and let them eat it down to the ground. Just be sure to allow for enough plant growth to allow flowering and seed formation, so you can gather / burn / scatter ash.

Steiner successfully did this with a variety of weed types  - and was also successful with a variation of this approach to rid fields overrun by rabbits, to get them off the property.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA327/English/BDA1958/19240614p01.html

I hope all goes well with you in your new home!

John C Daley wrote:Well done!
Some photos will be nice.
Earthen floors in 'basements' can be good. How high is the ceiling?
I shared homes I owned with a boarder for 20 years when I was 25 or so, it helps with the cash flow and socially is nice also.
I was careful how I selected house mates, had rules;
- shared food
- no loud music
- shared cooking and cleaning
- had to have a job
- had to invite somebody over for dinner from time to time.
It was good fun and I developed good friends to this day.

The basement ceiling is tall enough to stand in, but I have to duck to walk under the... ducts. Access to it is the real challenge; I believe it had an actual door to the outside at some point (maybe used as a root cellar?) but a newer room built on to that side means getting in now requires climbing down through a trapdoor and walking through the addition's shallower crawlspace (about 3'). Maybe usable for storage, assuming the flooding was a one-off event as all my neighbors tell me it was, but I wouldn't trust anything valuable or delicate down there and it's never going to be a living space. (I actually kept my quail in the basement for the first few months, since I moved in December and didn't have their outdoor housing up yet. Having to emergency relocate them was unpleasant, but I may not have noticed my basement was flooding as soon as I did otherwise!)

The economy around here is mainly seasonal/tourism. I was incredibly lucky to have found a job I actually love doing in one of the few shops that stays open year-round, really perfect timing. I'd been prepared to take another factory job despite how much I've hated it for the last five years, or possibly a summer job here and then have a longer commute to work in a ski resort in winter. But there's a major housing shortage for summer workers, so I can easily offer a room to someone for just a few months out of the year and know that it's a huge upgrade from the tiny apartment, if that (two of the people I work with have been camping all summer!) they'd be sharing otherwise. If I do happen to end up with a terrible roommate, at least I know they'd be gone soon enough.

My yard is one long narrow strip of dense packed clay with an 80' sickly elm in the middle. I did finally confirm last week that it's not Dutch Elm Disease, it's slime flux! Gross, but nowhere near as deadly. It rained last night so I'm about to head out to work on digging up a few clusters of knotweed while the ground is still as soft as it gets.

Sounds pretty good to me.
When we interviewed prospective share mates, we finally would suggest they go away and think about it, and get back to us.
In the meantime we thought about it.
If they got back, we then said yes or no.
It was straightforward.

Congrats on pulling it off. An old house, a big tree, knotweed and a Michigan basement sounds like you managed to buy yourself a whole hobby along with the house
If it were mine I'd probably make a boring priority list before getting sucked into the fun projects: anything involving water first, then roof, then anything that could fall on the house, then the rest. Old houses seem to have a way of making the cosmetic stuff look urgent while the unexciting stuff is what actually saves money later.