AND THE STORY CONTINUES ......

      I was looking again on August 2nd and IT WAS BACK ON THE LISTING.  I ran to tell Perry.  He asked if I was serious about it and I said that I thought so.  I asked if he was serious and he said ya I think so.  But how do you buy a house without the income from the sale of another?  And without another mortgage?  Back to day dreaming!
      The next morning Perry said I think I know how to finance that house without taking another mortgage.  We talked about it and I said, "We can ask Doug (a guy in our ward).  He does a lot with real estate and financing.  And maybe he can find out why the sale failed."  (couldn't get financing)  We had tried to get information from the real estate agent and could get no one to return our calls.
      I headed out the door to go do my daily walking and during my walk I ran across guess who?   Doug!!  I have never seen him during my walks.  (Or since either.)  I stopped him, told him what we were thinking and asked if he could get some information on the house for us!!  He was really excited because he has wanted to redo an old house himself.  He said he would check it out that afternoon and get back to us.
     About an hour after I got back, Doug called and said he had talked to the real estate agent.  He gave us some info. and said if we were really interested he could put in a provisional offer today.  A provisional offer if accepted is good for 3 weeks during which time you can check it out, get a home inspection, etc.  At the end of the 3 weeks you can proceed with the sale or you can take your earnest money and walk away.   I said let me talk to Perry and I'll call you back.  5 minutes later I called him back and said let's do it.  So the offer went in, they countered, we accepted the counter and we were on our way!!!
      We immediately went down to the house and started REALLY poking into every corner nook and cranny of the house.  The front part of the house is the original 1914 home and the back is the 1990+ additions.  Upstairs the original house has 2 bedrooms, a full bath and a funny little room that we called the playroom (for grandchildren) that had been made out of the back attic over the kitchen.
(Disclaimer:  pictures are not the best and you really need a wide angle lens to get the full room, you can't see anywhere near all the intricacies of the rooms.  And i haven't used this program in a really long time.  Hopefully I will get better.  We will gladly give tours or share our hundreds of pictures. : )
     Bedroom 1   Bedroom 2 with door                                                                                                                                   to balcony
                                        
     Bathroom     Playroom
                                                                                              w/washer dryer hookups

 Downstairs in the original house is two rooms (We call the one directly off the front door the home teacher room and the one to the west, the office).  It also has a kitchen with a 3/4 bath off it and a kitchenette.  The addition contained a family room off the kitchen, a second family room off the kitchenette, a bedroom with an en suite and two more bedrooms.

   home teacher room          office
      bathroom off kitchen
                                                     


 



Kitchen and family room



                                   

    Kitchenette


             


               second family room

 It also has an attached two car garage and a small laundry room built off the front of the kitchen.  The house has been divided into 3 apartments so it has 6 exterior doors, 3  washer dryer hookups(later we found a fourth inside a wall), 2 furnaces and a cold storage room under the kitchen with an old fashioned floor hatch and wood ladder to get into it. There was a free standing gazebo outside one of the doors and a wood deck built onto the back porch which contained a hot tub.  It is a hodge podge of places and spaces.

 free standing gazebo to the right                 attached garage


               hot tub
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      The original house has some structural problems.  Cracks in the brick mortar, a cement pillar poured on the exterior to shore up the walls,  a crack or two in the inside walls, bolts ran through the second story floor to shore it up.  So we called an inspector.  The next week he went and inspected it for us.  The report was very long but his overall conclusion was that it was full of little problems but nothing major.  I really couldn't see anything that did not need something done to it, inside or out but we loved it.   I asked Perry over and over if he was sure he wanted to tackle this project.  It is a lot of work and he has to do most of it.  He told me he had done some research on the computer on old house structural problems and how to fix them.  He said worse case scenario the front corner collapses and we rebuild it.  He said he was sure.  We fasted, we prayed, we researched.  We spent sleepless nights.  No not worrying - designing, tearing apart, rebuilding, decorating, etc.  So we moved forward with the purchase.
    HOLY PAPERWORK!!!!!!!   Between the financing we needed to complete the sale paperwork, the actual cash sale paperwork, the home inspection and final closing, it was something every day for a month.  Almost everything is done by emailing or attaching files to online secure websites.  We even closed on the house on line!!

    But finally we were the owners . . . . 
      of a bright yellow house with a little picket fence!!!
Stay tuned as the demolition begins!!!