Maybe Shopping?

I read an add about a piece of property about a half hour drive from here. It's out in the country.

This is a loft in the middle sized cabin. This property has a main cabin and 2 others in close proximity to each other. There are also 2 little cabins whose foundations are in desperate need of repair or forget about it, and let them fall down. They could be nice though and they have good hardwood floor in them. They would be great for studio's or workshops. I didn't take a picture of them. 5 buildings in all.

This is the outside of the 2 medium cabins joined by a concrete patio.

The laundry hook up is in the main cabin and everywhere you look there is DIRT. This a utility closet for the washer and dryer.

and beauty, 5 acres of beauty and it's quiet. I took this from the upstairs and there is a sliding glass door. No deck or balcony yet.

This is one of the views from the upstairs in the main cabin. This makes me want to clean this place up. My hunny says it would take 10 years. He looked at me and said, 'When would I ever rest"? All of these beams are dry, everything needs cleaning and oiling or varnish. It needs something. But it is outrageously cool. This room is like a chapel. I would hang cool quilts over the railings. I can see us in this place and I love the picture in my head. I get great ideas but never know how much work is involved. Like the project the hunny just did. He did an amazing job and it took him about 3 weeks to get it done. Would this really take 10 years?

The other side of this room has this little loft, perfect for a reading nook. The beams are yellow long pine and they were salvaged from a cotton warehouse that was built on these timbers. They are termite proof and about 150 years old. The trees grow about 1/4 inch per year so it is very hard and strong. The floors have a gorgeous patina.

The downstairs, this is a shot of the wall and ceiling, a real cabin with chinking. I love it.

The downstairs main cabin. I would ask for that bed frame to be left there in a deal, it's a beautiful bed. There are two small closets lined with cedar chip board, smells good. I would like this area to be the main dining area with hutches and some seating. We would make the upstairs a living room and the loft a book nook. We'd have our bedroom in the middle cabin and an office over there.

Stairs going up to the main loft. These photos don't show all the dirt and how dry everything is. We would have to get gallons of oil. I think we should take a pressure washer inside and have at it and then vacuum up water with a shop vac. Maybe the oil or sealer could go on with a sprayer.

One bathroom, it works, that's all I can say for it. There is also a full bath in the smaller cabin. Kayla would have that, she could have her own little house in the woods. It's my least favorite of them all it needs something and I haven't got any brainstorms on that yet.

The kitchen actually has a dishwasher but I couldn't figure out anyplace for a refrigerator to go. In a pinch we could just use this as is. But if we were in a position to put money into it I would tear all this down up to the main cabin and build a new kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and master bedroom, plus a half bath. This place could be amazing but it would take money and work. Sweat equity.

The main cabin, the foundation is concrete block couldn't be sturdier. It says build a wrap around porch, don't you think?

Another view from outside.

It comes with 2 dogs I guess. The owner is an old man. He comes and feeds the dogs every day and they have a blast running the acreage. They are friendly guard dogs. We didn't have any trouble snooping around and they loved Jimmy. All animals love him and I am the dog lover, go figure.

I looked at it because it's less than our house. Running numbers we could maybe make $30,000 selling ours and buying this. That is not including what we would spend on it except for cleaning it. Spending would be a question of if, and when we have the money, not borrowing to make it great. There are a lot of questions. It's on a septic tank, there is no central air or heat. He has little window air conditioners everywhere and portable heaters. We could build a big fireplace in the medium cabin and put a wood stove in the main one. The air conditioner is a question. How much does it cost to run all those? If we added on we could put a central air unit in the addition.

We could just live in it and clean it, if we wanted to buy it. It's not so bad that you can't just clean up and move in. We would have to build a bathroom and a closet on the medium cabin and get a wood stove before winter. It would be so cozy in the winter.

It's very unique. The wood inside is just amazing. I love the setting, the property is beautiful. It is a big mess and needs to be cleaned up,(how many times have I said that?) by a small army of strong men. The driveway needs to be graded and gravel put down. It would be a country place. If I can go back to work we could really fix it up. If I couldn't we could live there and enjoy what there is. We would be able to reduce our debt load by the $30,000 which would make living on the hunny's income manageable. I would finally get to live in my cabin in the country.

I don't think I am not going to work anymore. I will work. So the real question is would this place work my husband to absolute death? He thinks it might. It's so pretty out there, but my first reaction was to run. Then today when I went back I liked it more. Would I really like being a country woman? 5 acres is the perfect size. It is a rectangle shape and all usable land. The soil seems very healthy. Our place in Felton was a horrible mess when we got that. It's what made the price tag where we could afford it. This one has a good price tag too.

Jimmy found some kind of big bug shell, I don't know what it was, something horrid. He put it on his head and when I looked at him I just started freaking out. Youurrrr HEEEAAADDDD!!!! He was asking me to get it off and I was yelping "I CAN'T!" Totally freaked me out. Of course about the time I have peed myself he busts up laughing and shows me it is a shell. Looked like a small crawdad, maybe it was an old june bug. Lord have mercy, nearly gave me a heart attack. We also found a little bitty tree frog, that was fun.

So that is how we spent some of our Saturday, looking at this place and thinking it over. We came back to our nice clean house and I just sighed. To buy or not to buy that is the question.