Skip to main content

Seeing Dollar Signs

The numbers match up.

That's the good and the bad news, all wrapped up in one.

Contractor number two emailed me today with the rough estimate on the two story house. By his estimate, the house would be anywhere between $280-340,000 depending on the types of finishes etc.

Did your jaw just hit the floor?

Mine didn't. Not this time anyways.

I already had a pretty good idea what his numbers were going to look like due to contractor number ones estimate.

The good news, is that both contractors numbers are pretty close. This means that they are likely giving me pretty solid, honest estimates.

The bad news, of course, is that we cannot, will not, are not, ever going to be able to afford anything that expensive.

So right now, we will continue looking for a floor plan that is much more within our reach.

I am still thinking about a one story plan with a bonus room like this.

Or.......

There's also the old farm house I mentioned briefly here.

I just always keep coming back to it. It's a two story, five bedroom, one bath house. We believe it was built around 1920.

The thing is, I have loved that house from the first day I laid eyes on it.

Everyone keeps saying it's more work than its worth, but there is no way it is over $300,000 worth of work. Renovating that house would mean, real wood floors, original doors, two stories, arched doorways and over eight foot ceilings.

All the things that are going to cost me some serious $ to build new.

The Hub's and others may see dollar signs and time consuming work where I see beauty, but I will not give up that fight until the very end.

So I guess what I am saying, is that nothing is set in stone. I am still considering every option out there. Renovating, building new, two story, one story, there are so many options to still look at.

I want a safe, warm, house for my family to call home. I will get there, it will take time, but I believe that there is a compromise that will work for us.

I may have to spend hours going over plans, and days going over pro's and con's. I may have to spend a year or two working out the details, but in the end it will be entirely worth it.

The blizzard continues here, so I guess I'll spend some more time browsing pictures here and floor plans here.

Have you ever fixed up an old house or built new? Which would you recommend?

Have a lovely day!

Source unknown

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Changes

I was cleaning today, which gave me time to think, and thinking always leads me here. The house is 'weekend messy', so decided to clean my floors, because The Nester says if your floors are clean the rest of the house feels clean too, even if it isn’t.  I have found that it is pretty good advice, so when everything else feels chaotic, I clean the floors. Of course for me, cleaning the floors also means picking up the toys, shoes, clothes, etc. so that I can even begin to vacuum, which naturally leads to a cleaner home as well.  While cleaning up I began to think about how this blog has evolved over the years, from a desire to write like The Nester about home, into what it is now.  I started writing this blog when I was dreaming of building a new home. Then plans changed, life took turns, and we ended up in a home so different than I expected and so perfect for our family. Somewhere along the way I realized that home wasn’t in the walls that went up or in the co
1 comment
Read more

A Year End Photo Review

I have been catching up on the blogs that I follow and I see so many end of the year round ups. I am not that organized, nor am I anywhere near having before and afters of the work on the Lucky house  all tied up in a pretty bow. What I do have though, are before and in-progress photos. I will let the pictures do most of the talking, but here is a little recap of where we started and where we are now! The journey to finding our home was a bit of a surprise and definitely a whirlwind of the best kind. In May of 2013, I got a message from a neighbor asking if we would be interested in buying their farmhouse. You can read all about it, here , here ,  here  and here ! So we bought a house, poured the foundation and moved the ninety year old house approximately two miles. We then jumped into renovations, additions and remodeling. We moved into Lucky in February 2014. Since then projects largely stalled, while I awaited the arrival of our third baby! It has been a crazy year and
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Brighten Up a Friday!

What's a girl to do when the babies are driving her crazy on a Friday and she's in the middle of an existential crisis ? Go shopping of course, then out to lunch with her brother and a good friend! I couldn't help myself today when I found this bright turquoise chair at a local store and the star strainer was just what I needed to brighten up another gray skied day. Have a beautiful Friday! P.S. A blog I follow just released a fabulous app for pictures! I used it on the photo above!   Posted with Blogsy
1 comment
Read more