Wednesday, July 18, 2018

We found OUR NEW HOUSE in Missouri!

We went to our third ward in Missouri on Sunday: the Ava ward.  A brother stopped me in the hall after church and said that he had talked with Eric.  He said there was a family looking to sell and move soon, but that they had not listed the house yet.  He gave me the number.

I went to see it on Monday.  It was exciting!  The house is NOT finished, but it's mostly finishing work and flooring.  I seem to find houses bigger than I really think I want.  This is in that category as well, but we don't know exactly how big it is. 6 bedrooms, 2 fully functioning bathrooms and plumbed for 3 more.
Eric went to see it with us yesterday.  

I was not as excited this time around as the weight of all the work settled in.

Eric's response was that he did not dislike it. 

The house is rather close to the road but it is not traveled much at all.


This is the entryway looking into the living room.  
On the left is a door to a coat closet and another door to a 1/2 bath plumed and with all supplies, just not installed.  The 1/2 bath is the ONLY original part of the old farmhouse.

Kitchen  
The walk in pantry is HUGE.  It will hold all 16 of my 5 gallon buckets and all the food we have that is not in food storage buckets.
From this point, the dining area is behind me.  And the table stays.  It seats 12, plus room for food in the center.

   I only got the pantry door, not the actual room...
   The other door on the left goes into the laundry room

Master closet walks into the bathroom

The wall color will have to change.... eventually
There is pine and honey oak, and now grays and different browns in the tile...  Color suggestions are welcome.

jetted tub

huge shower with his and hers shower heads

The tile work was done well.

laundry room

upstairs bath

Amelia wants this room

The carpet will come out of this room day 1.  
Probably Seth's room.

Bedroom, used as a storage/construction stuff room. 
Probably Elanor's room

Another bedroom, but no closet. Maybe Naomi's room.

The last bedroom has a built in platform bed. - no picture.  Argh.
It will probably go to Scott

The one side of the wrap around porch that has roofing on it.

Shop 
(All cars and stuff will leave - he's a mechanic)

The shop has an office, kitchenette and 1/2 bath that can have a shower put in.
And storage on top.
This could easily be made into an apartment/guesthouse!

One bay goes all the way through.
The RV will fit here nicely.

Chicken coop, although it looks like an out house from this angle.

"Green house" that gets very little sunlight.

1800's root cellar, with no "roof"
It's not functional. I'm not sure it ever will.  But it certainly adds character.

It's on 28 acres!
a septic system
TWO wells, one drilled and one from the original farmhouse - both functional.
Propane for the cook stove and heating.
The nearest neighbors are 1/2 mile away in either direction.

There is access to the property up the driveway and also at the south end.  There is a car trail "road" that was cleared that goes to a pond. The area around the pond has been cut, but needs a lot more help before it will be park like and have benches and a fire pit.  (at least that was the owner's vision)


And so now I suspect you are wondering what the asking price is...
they were going to list it well under 150K.  Because there is no realtor commission, they dropped it 10K for us.  

I felt very, very impressed to look at the "trash house."  In looking at maps, Eric suggested looking at the Ava area or Ava ward boundaries, that we should go to the Ava ward.  We truly felt drawn here.  We looked at the "trash house" two times.  I felt strongly that this was the "area" we needed to be in.  At one point I was trying to talk myself into being ok with the "trash house."  We also looked at another house close by.  
The onions even noticed and asked "haven't we been down this road a few times already?"
Even on days when we were swimming or just taking a drive, we would find ourselves in the same general area.
The pull was almost tangible. So when I saw the house, it all made sense. This house was meant for us.


We are going into DEBT, taking out a relatively small loan that we plan to pay off as fast as we can.
I have been baffled by the impression I received not to go into debt.  I have prayed so often for confirmation of that impression and had not received it.  However, the impression to stay out of debt struck me and I shared with Eric and we clung to that.  

If I had not had that impression, we would have looked for a comfortable house in a much higher price range, gotten a conventional loan and been in debt for 15 - 30 years and gone back to our old way of thinking.

The impression not to go into debt triggered the idea that we needed to stay out of debt, that we needed to continue to be more mindful about our decisions, and as a result we looked at things that were much less expensive.

The biggest struggle about deciding to buy this home is that fact that we will have to go into debt, period.  We have been debt free for over 2 years and it feels good.  We don't want to disobey the Lord and we don't want to be burdened by debt.  However, we are willing to get a short term loan and pay it off quickly.  


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