Doole house revisited?

Camera-check. Trees of Ontario book-check. Trees of Canada book-check. Batteries charged. check. Land survey. check. Real-Estate agent's cell # check. Tape measure. check.

I'm all packed up and rarin to go. We're off to go and look at a property. It may be a little early to start up the hunt again (we viewed one back in Sept)but, this one really calls out to us. And they've just dropped the price. 46 acres of heaven, nestled in dense bush, not a neighbor in sight, only minutes from the highway, rural school nearby, biking distance to town, several acres of pasture, barns.....what's the catch?

Like we expect, if we are to obtain a good chunk of land with some outbuildings on it, the house is going to be in rough shape. This one apparently is over 100 yrs old, and has been gutted. The current owners never got around to the renovation aspect after having taken it apart. I'm told that there may be a racoon in one of the bedrooms upstairs. And that the doors are all open, as they had a break in and decided to just leave it open instead of boarding it up. Hmmmm. On the bright side, at that price, we could afford to sink a good chunk into fixing it up before moving in.

One of the first things that comes to mind when I see the picture of this home, is that it looks (from the outside) a lot like the little house that Marnie and Jeff Doole had back in Limehouse. The age would be about the same too. It was such a character that little house. Jeff was always renovating it, improving it or expanding it in one way or another. Marne seemed to be constantly shifting, and folding her life around the ever changing life form that her home had become. The house was cozy, it smelled of wood fire and cookies, and a sweet little black cocker cross named Murphy would greet you at the door, trying her hardest to restrain herself from the forbidden act of licking all the guests. If living could be but a slice of the life that Marne and Jeff had in limehouse, you can serve me up a plate of that.

So I'll drink down a cup of optimism, and head out for a day of adventure and exploration. We aim to walk around as much of the acreage as we can, and get a good feel for what it is.

Its Renovation Tax Credit Eve!!

Big box shopping centres don't usually score very high on my priority list of places to spend money. But why? Well, of course, because their staff are usually underpaid, they purchase goods produced in countries with lax child labour and labour standards laws, and they inevitably outcompete the smaller locally owned businesses, by selling things for only a few dollars less, or having a wider variety of stock. Because we all need to choose from 50 different models of forced air register covers....surely the 10 models you'd find at the mom and pop shop would never suffice.

The big box shop would argue that they employ more people, thereby stimulating the local economy even more....however what economic value does a part-time earner of $10 an hour hold to the community-compared to say a full time income earner bringing in $50,000 per annum.

Alas, enough of my rant. After learning that the Durham region re-store hasn't the items we need, and that it isn't frequented as much as the re-stores in other regions (meaning lower turnover of stock), and searching kijiji for a while for our supplies and coming up empty....we head to the local Home Depot, in a mad dash to purchase as many products for our renovations as we possibly can because its "Renovation Tax Credit Eve"!!!!.

That's right. You heard it. Tomorrow is THE last day to purchase goods for home renovations to claim our govt's incentive to upgrade your home and get a credit for your purchases against your taxes.

So, lists in hand of what we need, we were off to the Depot last night already. Did some pricing, got a kitchen faucet. Confirmed this am that it matches the light fixtures already in place. Got a quote on the kitchen counter tops-ouch!!! Then we're off to 'millwork' for another quote-they're cheaper. But wait-they need 4 weeks to fabricate....ok...so back to the Depot (after trading Mr.J's car for cousin J's van) to get one piece from them. Out of stock. Right now we're just having a wee break for coffee, and to let Mavie (our cocker spaniel puppy) go to the loo...Then we're back to the Original Depot, to get the first thing we saw last night (of course). We will get one custom made piece from the local shop, and it will be 4 weeks.

We also managed to score some forced air heating registers, a bathroom faucet, knobs for the bathroom, and a new broom in this ordeal.

More later-back to the box.

Accomplishments in progress

Well, after a long week of work, I have managed to accomplish the following:

-worked on writing Mr. J's job transfer proposal
-found an interesting property, researched it and contacted the agent
-freecycled several large items, freeing up space in the house for the reno
-packed up a good deal of the kitchen
-packed up some books
-made arrangements with a plumber
-made arrangements for an energy auditor
-cleared out items from the storage room

As well, I have motivated Mr. J to start sifting through all his 'items'. Mr.J has a lot of items. He's a bit of a packrat some would say....he would say...he's a "collector". I can't say I'm entirely guilt free of the same habit at times-I like to save really really junky things that I think will be useful one day. For instance, there is a giant roll of old holey chainlink fencing wire in the backyard, that I have no intention of parting with. Someone freecycled it to me and I never used it. But fence wire is expensive....and when you like animals....you can seemingly never have enough fence wire.

Today, I have some more cleaning and organizing to do, and to prepare the laundry room to function as a temporary kitchen while we rip the main bank of cupboards and counter/sink out.

A plumber is also coming to fix the bathtub tap and overflow.

Our Spanish Pipedream

If you're familiar at all with John Prine, then you'd know about a little song called "Spanish Pipedream" and have a certain idea about what this blog is about.

If you've never heard the song, you can familiarize yourself with it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RBgfUvymM (sorry I can't get this link thing working)

So to open my new running commentary, I'll start by saying that with my fiancee of 4 months, and life partner of 2.5 yrs (Mr. J) and with my son (Boy S) of 6 years, we're embarking on what may be the greatest most life changing and impacting adventure of our lives. In fact, I think we're embarking on our lives in general...and making a go of living our dream.

1. Blow up your T.V.
Check. In a certain sense, this is something that we have already accomplished. In just a few weeks time, it will be a year from when we lost the remote control to the T.V. and haven't watched it since. We adjusted seamlessly into watching movies on the laptop monitor-and while I do miss the size from time to time, we haven't done anything about it yet, and I can't really say that anyone has complained that they miss it to any great extent.



2. Throw away your paper
Check. Its also been nearly a year since I posted a sign on the mailbox that we no longer cared to receive the 'free' paper. The amount of generated waste was just too much to handle. It more than amply filled our newspaper recycling bin each week and made me sicker each time I carried the (for the most part) unread news to the curb. We can still read the news online, and listen to the radio, but the waste factor is gone. Some time after the paper girl ceased to deliver the paper, she also ceased to come knocking on our door (which was usually inevitably at dinner time) for the suggested fee asscociated with this paper. Some time later, I took down the sign to paint the mailbox, never replaced it, and the paper still doesn't come.

3. Move to the country

Wait a minute. That's what we're trying to do here. No problem...just let me do a full kitchen reno, build a new fence, paint the house, move a chicken coop, remove some vegetable gardens, plant a lawn, lay some carpet, trim some doorways, replace some baseboards, do a little drywall patching, re-paint half the house, change all the light fixtures and doorknobs, and switchplates...and organize and pack a house that is chock full of items which have not been sorted, or organized in over 6 years...so that the house can be sold, and THEN find a new home to move to, oh and did I mention get Mr. J approved for a job transfer and also, that somewhere along the way we're engaged to be wed as well. No worries!!!

The long and short of it is that Mr.J, bought himself a fixer upper, and now its time to fix it so that we can get on with our lives....and this is the story of making that happen, one way or another.