Meet R house....
As a result of requesting to stay in the U.S. and not traveling abroad, work requested that I move to the Tri-Cities. Marcie and the boys were all for it since Albany simply has nothing to offer me for employment, the schools are continuously eliminating classes, and we are simply tired of the place.
We searched for a couple of months, me from overseas and Marcie from Albany, making a few trips as a family and alone to try and find something that fit. We had a list of requirements and were unwilling to compromise off the bat. We had a specific high school in mind (Hanford High), we wanted to be in the old neighborhood, walking distance to stores, near the walk path and the river, and obviously within our budget.
Richland has a ton of new construction and we could have easily walked into one of these new homes or had one built with slight modifications to their cookie cutter designs. After countless internet searches and walk-throughs, we were so put-off by the fact that every house looked the same that we wanted nothing to do with them, plus they ALL had columns, and arches. We are not Grecian and just couldn't justify spending money on something we would be "settling" for.
In early November, after weeks of dismal searches and tours, this little guy popped onto the market. It was there only a couple of days when we mobilized and walked through it (along with 3 others in the area). This one spoke to us immediately, had aaaaaalllmmooosst everything we wanted, and lots of potential. Marcie and I looove potential.
It does not have a garage (on the potential list) and had a partially finished basement. Partial is a very generous term. It has a lot of character that was lacking in so many others that we looked at. It was born in 1948. It has original hardwood floors under the carpet that have not seen the light of day in decades, its located 5 minutes from work and is in a historic neighborhood. Here is a link to the neighborhood(s) information: http://www.joelane.com/
We made an offer that beat out the other potential buyers (these houses move fast) and closed the Monday before Thanksgiving. We spent the first few days standing in each room, taking measurements, planning, and destroying what was a partially finished basement. Roughly 24 hours into its ownership, we had the basement mostly demolished.
I worked on design drawings for a couple of weeks, met with the city a few times, met with subcontractors for electrical, HVAC, plumbing, and window guys, and we received our remodel permits for Christmas. We are starting with the basement, and maybe the kitchen, to get us through the winter, then move to a garage if there is any drive left for the summer.
We have gutted the basement to about 90%, leaving only beams, posts and plumbing essentially. The intent is to work on it during evenings alone and then Marcie and the boys will join me on the weekends when the weather is nice to help out. The boys did want to finish the school year out in Albany, which gives us more time to finish, and plan to move permanently in June.
Here are the photos thus far.....
Here we go....
