Wednesday, June 23, 2010

1. How It All Began

Grandview is the name I've given my beach house.  I like saying that - it's been a dream for many years now, to have a place close to the beach for myself, my family and my friends.  This is all very romantic, but the truth is it's a real project at this point.  Not much grand about it, but I can see right through the age and deterioration.  The bones are there, and I knew it the first time I laid eyes on it.





I'm setting a goal of one year to get it to where I really want it - I'll be sharing the experience with you, and I hope you enjoy it.  To me each little step of the project is exciting, like putting together the pieces of a giant puzzle.  Some of  it is already there, some needs to be cleared away and new pieces added in.  Deciding which is which is the very first step.  No, actually the first step is buying the house.


I received word today (which happens to be my 48th birthday) that the seller accepted my offer for the house.  It has been a 6-month process, with periods of nail-biting impatience as well as utter disgust with the whole thing.  


It began with a visit in January with the Realtor representing the seller, at which time I fell in love with the place, but kept my best poker face on.   Next I took Rob, my contractor friend, and my close friends Jake and Bobbie (Jake is a certified home inspector and has great experience in all trades) to see the place and get their take on what might be required.  I also wanted advice on whether the building was going to fall down around my ears.


At that time I put a bid in of $30,000 for the house.  I figured what the heck - in this market you never know what people will go for.  The asking price was $79,900 so I was sure I would have to come up at least a little.  About 6 weeks later, they came back with a price of $55K, which looking back I should have jumped on.  But I'm such a cheap-ass... no, someone once told me "you make your money going in", which means you don't expect to make any money when you sell the place.  You have to get that deal that's a winner from the very first.  Which appealed to my cheap-ass nature.  Either way, I countered with $45K, and it took them a month or so to reject that.  When I went back a week later and said "OK, I'll pay $55,000" they responded with "we didn't know it was quite so close to the beach so now the price is $70,000".  The file was closed out.


Confused yet?  I was, and tired of thinking about it.

I set the whole business aside, turned my attention to some other projects I had going on at home.  I built a fence to enclose my property, to keep my dogs from wandering into other countries while I wasn't looking.  When they went to the south to visit, they were in "Mexico", where a couple of big German Shepherds lived with a very nice man from - you guessed it - Mexico.  When they headed north - which really worried me - they ventured into a newer subdivision that I'm sure my dog Rufus remembers used to be a pine forest in which he could chase bunnies and pee on a thousand trees.  This was "Canada".  The weather heated up and overnight, summer arrived on April 1.



When the fence was finished, I decided to resurrect the beach house dream.  I made an appointment with my Realtor to visit a certain beach side town (which, by the way is one hour from my home) and look at some more fixer-uppers in my price range.  Oy.  One of them had the strangest dungeon-y downstairs that might have made a nice wine cellar, but they had a skanky little bathroom down there and it was just plain strange.  On the way up the stairs I smashed my head into the appropriately-named "header" over the stairs.  The rest of the house was nothing special and I left there with a headache.  At the next house, the downstairs was kind of cool and open - the staircase was weird - but when we got upstairs another head-banger.  Someone had turned what should have been an attic into a bedroom where a bed might fit in the middle, but that would be the only place in the room you could stand erect.  I began thinking I was too tall for a beach house.  At the other end of the hall was the second "bedroom" which had no floor and open rafters just like an attic would have.  Hmm.  Upon exiting the third house, we noticed our legs were covered with black pepper.  Oh no, the pepper was jumping around and biting us:  fleas!!  And there wasn't a stitch of carpet in the house.  Didn't like it anyway.


So I came home with one really cool cutting from a plant that I snapped off when no one was looking - and a renewed love for my original beauty - Grandview.  I resubmitted an offer of $60K.


And 6 weeks later, today, they accepted it. Closing should be in a week or so.  Let the fun begin!!

3 comments:

  1. Fabulous! I hear this as the voice over for the intro credits of the movie made about the best-selling memoir you have begun to write!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What town is it in? Do you have more pictures, gotta take lots of before and after pictures. Sounds like a great place to fix up and enjoy your handy work. Can't wait to hear more adventures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am officially your first follower. Looking forward to your progress!

    ReplyDelete