"The Chokey"

Ever see the movie Matilda? Or read the book? Familiar with "the chokey"?

It's a small, closet-sized room which has nails sticking out every which way and lots of jagged edges poking into the room. When the kids behave badly in school, they are forced to stand in it by the awful principal, Agatha Trunchbull (doesn't the name even sound horrible?)

What does this have in common with M&J's house, do you ask?

Check this out:

 

Our Weird Closet - aka "The Chokey"

On our first tour of the house, we opened it's door thinking it was a coat closet (it's approximately five feet from the entryway).  We opened it up and found a cable wire coming up through a drilled hole in the beautiful wood floor (WHAT were they thinking?!?) - must have stored a TV in this closet and watched it from either the kitchen, dining or living rooms. All three have a straight shot to where that TV must have sat.

Not only was cable running to this closet, it also houses the doorbell ringer, attic access, an outlet and a single light bulb. Some might say "multipurpose". It also housed some odd storage system - shelving as well as vertical partitions. We found this very odd from the beginning and it created lots of confusion when referring to it.

From then on, this closet had to have a name. Inevitably, it became the "chokey" to J's family, as they were familiar with Matilda. After a few weeks (or months) the name stuck and it will (unfortunately)  always be "the chokey", even though M&J are going to make it a pantry.

Guts

The weekend after getting the keys to our new place, M & J, along with J's parents and brother, got to work on the house.

 

J's brother mowed the yard LAWN (we're county kids - it's a yard!) and picked up trash, large limbs and anything else that wasn't supposed to be in the yard (Can't help it...). Although the exterior was in pretty good shape, our new home needed some help to increase it's curb appeal (Yet again, a new concept to country kids. Growing up, our exterior home decor had two rules - be heavy and hearty enough to withstand Kansas winds and crazy weather. If it passed those two rules, it could be put outside. If not, be willing to kiss it goodbye - It wouldn't last a day outside the country homes in Kansas.)

 J's Brother Mowing the Lawn

M & J, with the help of J's parents, got to work on the inside of the house. J and her Mom cleaned the bathrooms and dumped lots of things in the trash while M and J's Dad began gutting the kitchen. Cabinet doors came off, then cabinets came out. Drawers were carried out, back splash tile was pulled off the walls... everything was gutted in the kitchen. I'm sure our new neighbors thought we were crazy - "You just bought the place and now you're taking everything out!" We knew we wanted a new kitchen - the one that was there was not in very good shape and had lots of dings, stains, etc. - and we planned for that when we decided what we were willing to purchase our home for.

 

J Enjoying the Gutted Kitchen

M and J's Dad Gutting the Kitchen

 

We also took down curtains, curtain rods and these B-E-A-U-TIFUL (just a hint of sarcasm) drapes in our living and dining room:

 

 

Wonder why?

 

We made lots of progress during that weekend and it really helped us feel better about what we were about to undertake.

Our House - Before

After our home was officially ours, we went and took beginning photos of our first place. We wanted to be able to look back and see what our house was BEFORE all our hard work. Here's the "before" of our home:The Outside

Entryway
View of the Combined Dining and Living Room

View of the Kitchen from the Dining RoomAnother view of the KitchenHalf bath - just off the kitchen

Master Bedroom
Full Bathroom
Second Bedroom - will become M's OfficeThird Bedroom - to become Guest BedroomHallway with Built-in ClosetOne half of the Utility RoomOther Half of the Utility RoomOpen Room in the Basement - will become J's Craft RoomCloset in what will be J's Craft RoomOne Half of Family RoomOther Half of the Family Room

Knowing what we had to work with was going to help us know what steps would need to be taken to get our home to the place we wanted it. We were looking forward to getting some ideas together and seeing what opportunities would be available to us for our new place, and we couldn't wait to get started.

SOLD!

On day 250 of marriage, (but who's counting) M & J purchased their first home.

SOLD - M & J are now Homeowners

In Front of our New Place

We were armed and ready to get to work - the faster we got things finished up the faster we could get moved into our new place. We had a long list of tasks, but were hopeful to get most of them done (at least to the point that we could move in) by the end of May. We were hoping to have friends over for the 4th of July holiday, and wanted to have a renovated house finished and ready for guests. Boy, we had a lot to learn...

House #3 - St. John

At this point, we were hoping that third time would be a charm. However, we didn't know which house would be lucky number 3...

We waited about a month to see if anything else was going to come on the market, and during this time, M's father passed away. We continued to look, but realized that time was moving fast and we were going to be wanting a place of our own pretty soon. J had accepted a position in Central KS, but M & J were still living in their house in Manhattan at the time. This led to J (and occasionally M) living with J's parents (and occasionally M's mother). Although this worked out just fine, and M & J were VERY thankful to have a place to stay, we were ready to have our own place. We had to be out of our home in two months, and we needed to get the buying process started.

After waiting for more options that it seemed were never coming, we decided to re-evaluate the homes we had already seen to see if there was something that could work for us, whether on a temporary basis or a situation where we could flip the house and get something else in the future if we didn't love the house we purchased. There were no quality options for renting, so this led us to re-evaluate past options.

We narrowed it down to two places we thought might work - both homes we had already seen at least once. One was located on Clark St, and was a former veterinarian's home. It was very custom-built - picture a weird layout, carpet in the master bath, walking through an open master bath to get to the bedroom, etc. To top it off, an awkward red and black checkerboard carpeted wet bar area and a linoleum tiled rec room were not at the top of our list. This home had large rooms, a main floor laundry room and the most updated kitchen we had seen, but these things did not make up for other things we would have to fix, much less the price. Given its need for remodeling and its age, we felt it was way overpriced and didn't think we stood a chance to buy it at the price we were willing to pay.

Clark Street

Our second option was the house we never really considered the first time around. We were so taken by the interior blemishes that we hadn't really looked at potential - all we saw was what was there. The price was below what we were willing to pay, but it still had issues. An awful 18" back door. Lots of holes and scrapes down doors and woodwork that was scattered with multiple colors of paint. The basement was finished, which was great, but it seemed that the kitchen and bathrooms would have to go immediately, and this entire home was going to need lots of TLC to get back to what it should be and even more to improve it. It was in a great neighborhood, with a large back yard and had lots of potential to become a great home. We just had to decide if we were willing to put in the work, the time and the money to make this home a great home and our home.

St. John

After visiting both homes again, taking family to have them share their opinions, we decided to put in an offer. (Hopefully) considering all things and weighing all the pros and cons, we chose to put in an offer on the house on St. John. We called our realtor, and after talking through our options, we put in our offer and waited. We received a counter-offer, and then chose to counter-offer one time. If our offer wasn't accepted at this point, we were willing to walk away. We had done it twice before, and the third time would be no different. Now all we had to do was wait...

House #2 - Truesdell Street

After recovering from the loss of house #1, we were on to Plan B.

While visiting our hometown over the weekend, we happened to see a yard sign advertising an upcoming house auction. Although we weren't expecting a great house to be up for auction, we thought it couldn't hurt to drive by and look. We were pleasantly surprised - brick home, good neighborhood, large fenced in back yard - and rushed home to see what we could find out about this house online. We could see pictures, and we weren't totally turned off from what we saw. Only one bathroom, but it was large. Main floor laundry, large master bedroom (could be two rooms) and an open living, dining and kitchen space. The home had an unfinished basement, but there were possibilities for extra bedrooms, bathroom(s) and family room. It needed some work, but yet again, lots of potential.

Auction House - Truesdell Street

We slept on the thought of bidding on this home for a few nights, and in the end decided to go to the auction and bid on what might be our first home. One problem. M was going to be out of state for work on the day of the auction. GREAT. This left J to suffer bid on the house by herself. Luckily, her dad was willing to come to the auction and work through it with her. M & J thought through all the possibilities so (hopefully) J wouldn't have to do much deciding on her own the day of the auction - it's hard to think of all possibilities that could come up during an auction! You've been to 'em - people start throwing up their arms or just stick up one finger (not that one) to bid and you're left guessing "Was that me? Did someone behind me bid? I don't want to turn around and look to see who did it - you don't do that during auctions! No, I didn't want to bid that much!"

After talking through tons of situations that might arise, and finally determining a price we were willing to bid up to, M left on his trip and J headed back to Central KS to bid on what might be their first place. Long story short, after J thinking she might be buying their first place, she was outbid (by much more than M & J were willing to pay knowing the amount of money it was going to take to fix it up). J was by far the youngest bidder there, and thought was hoping that the others would give up in and let her buy it, seeing as they knew it would be their first place. But, wasn't going to happen. She sucked it up and held in her tears and then called M to tell him that yet again, someone else won what was supposed to be their house. Hopefully the third time would be the charm...

A Lesson in House Hunting

M & J became interested in house hunting in the fall of 2009. After J’s graduation and Christmas, we decided to move from online searching to actual home showings. We tried out four places on the first day out and never would have guessed that one of them would be our future home.

One house was too smoky for our taste and not big enough. Nope.

The next two seemed like more logical options. Both in good locations, had lots of garage space, but had some work to be done and were listed at higher prices.

The last home was in a great location, but that was about the only “great” thing we saw that day. Torn up inside, only one full bath, lots of work to be done in every room and a HIDEOUS 18 inch back door that could not be overlooked.

After the first day, we were discouraged by the amount of work to be done in all of these houses and felt like we had lots to learn and were going to be sacrificing a lot to even find a house we would consider buying.

We went back to Manhattan and stalked checked out realty Web sites often to see if anything new was coming onto the market. Things got crazy for M in February when he started traveling frequently for work and then in March we lost his dad. At this point, it reiterated the fact that we should move back to Central KS and fast. Our lease ended in Manhattan in May, and if we wanted to avoid being homeless, we needed to act quickly. Little did we know – we’d have to go through attempting to purchase three houses before we’d land our first place.