Take me home, country roads
Years ago, before the spud was in high school, Robyn and I wanted to move out of the suburbs and to the country. We wanted some space, away from the all the hubbub, noise, and little kids running pell-mell through the neighborhood. Our desire was a country house and some land, for a whole lot less money than our cookie cutter suburb house.
What we ended up with — thanks to me and my rigid tastes in homes — was a smaller, more expensive suburban house on less land with more neighbors. And more kids, only now they were playing in our yard and flowerbeds instead of just running around the neighborhood. We settled in where we are now and vowed to move to the country as soon as the spud graduated high school.
I’m good at screwing things up, you might say.
After a year in our current house, we started having a little belated buyer’s remorse. Screaming kids, loud traffic, and daily gridlock on the roads got old quickly. Thus began the talking again about “moving to the country.” Not Green Acres country, but a place with some room, no traffic, and no neighbors all up in our business. A spot for a pond, a nice garden, and a rambly old house with some character that we could mold into exactly what we wanted:
Our own little heaven on earth.
Fast forward to this year. The talk began again over the summer, because this is the spud’s last year in high school and we’ll no longer be shackled to Madison. Don’t get me wrong — Madison was and is a great town, but it’s getting overgrown by white flight or whatever they’re calling it this week. All the yuppies are moving out here. The houses are getting bigger and bigger and property (and taxes) costs more and more. A quarter of an acre here costs $40,000. In the five years we’ve lived in this house, its value has gone up by a third.
Talk really ramped up about a month ago, after our next door neighbor yelled at me for driving 20 mph while he was pushing his daughter down the middle of the road. I bought some books on living in the country and what’s entailed, because I’m a big believer in that book learnin’ stuff. I checked the MLS listings daily to see what was available, and sent links to Robyn so we could talk about exactly what we wanted and where we wanted it. Not, mind you, that our neighbor was running us off because he yelled at me, but because that was the straw that made us say, “we really want to get out of the suburbs and into the country. Fuck this.”
I went so far as to call the school board to see about what could be done to let the spud live outside the school district and still finish out her senior year in Madison’t high school. No problem, the woman there said. The superintendent has to approve it, but since she’s not trying to transfer in I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t.
I talked to our realtor.
We started driving around, looking at locations, to see what there was to be seen. Saturday afternoon, we drove over to Smallville (a pseudonym), a tiny burg that’s convenient to Huntsville, Decatur, Athens, and Madison, because I’d found a little house on five acres that looked promising. As it turned out, the house was several miles beyond my self-imposed “house must be 30 minutes or less from work” area. But it was too small, anyway.
On the way back to a main road, we passed a house with a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) sign in the front yard, which I pointed out to Robyn. We turned around, drove back by slowly, and decided we liked the looks of the house, but that it wasn’t on enough land. Still, Robyn wrote down the numbers because it can never hurt to check and see what they want.
I called when we got home, and set off a string of life-changing firecrackers. The current owner emailed me a lot of pictures, and we loved what we saw:
We wanted an old country farmhouse. The FSBO house was built in 1935, and had one owner until 2000. The current owners bought it from the estate, and began work. They replaced all the electrical stuff, all the plumbing, added insulation, sheetrocked a few rooms, added / converted a couple of rooms in the back, replaced all the windows with double-pane windows, put in a modern dishwasher and stove, built a 2-car garage with a big bonus room above, and put in new counters and cabinets.
We wanted a decent amount of space. The house is 2200 square feet, and sits on 4.5 acres.
We wanted a pond. It has a pond, although it’s small and almost dried up because of the current drought. It even has a duck already.
We wanted big trees, not crappy little Bradford Pear trees that snap like twigs if you breathe on them too hard. Remember how our neighbor’s tree split and fell across our driveway a few weeks back? A week later, the other half snapped in a windstorm and fell. Our other neighbor, Shrieky McSlowdown? Their Bradford Pear snapped and fell this past weekend. The FSBO house’s yard is loaded with MASSIVE trees, 75 feet or taller, including two very Poltergeist-y pecan trees out back.
We wanted a house with a little character, not another same-as-all-the-others subdivision house. All the floors in the FSBO house are hardwood (but two of the upstairs bedrooms have carpet over the wood), and most of the walls are either beadboard or stained pine planking. The nine-foot ceilings are also all wood. Everything about this house has character. There’s a well under the house, waiting for a pump to pull out water for the yard.
Smitten. That’s what we were, before we’d even seen it.
I called the owners back and tried to make an appointment with them to see it on Sunday, but they weren’t able to until yesterday. I spent the morning trying to get the superintendent of the Madison Board of Education on the phone, to get his verbal approval in case we loved the house as much in person and wanted to make an offer. When he called back I explained the situation.
“I don’t know who told you that,” he said. “But we have a very strict policy against that. It’s all about the money. If you don’t live in Madison, you’re not paying taxes here. She would have to transfer to Smallville High.”
I offered to make a donation to the school, but they don’t have any way to accept something like that. Policies, and laws, and all that. He finally agreed that if we went ahead and sold our house, I should call him back, and he might be able to do something if it was close enough to the end of the school year. There’s no way we could risk that, though. We tease the spud, and she probably thinks we’re mean, but we wouldn’t do something as unspeakably evil as transfer her out of the school system she’s been in for seven years just a few months before graduation.
We were crestfallen, for about three minutes. Then I started playing with numbers, and figured out that we could probably swing two house payments for a few months if need be, especially since the FSBO house is a good chunk less than our current home. I worked out scenarios, and things looked better and better until we were back to our previous exuberance.
Eternal optimism over life has its benefits. We tend to see the bright side of every situation life puts us in.
I called the FSBO owner in the early afternoon to ask a couple of questions. She answered them, then said:
“Someone brought us a contract yesterday. We haven’t accepted it, because it’s too low, but I thought you should know. We’re probably going to make them a counteroffer.”
And elation turned back to despair. We fumed, we fretted, we worried that we were going to have the house we’d fallen in love with from afar sold out from under us.
I left work a little early yesterday, picked up Robyn, and we drove to Smallville to look at the house. Worried about hating it. Worried about it getting sold. Worried that it would suck in person. Worried, worried, worried.
And. We. Fucking. Loved. It.
Sure it needs work, and sure some things could be changed (like the paint, first thing). But it’s got character. And space. And it even has a chicken coop, for those chickens we talked about raising for eggs.
Perfect for us.
I believe in letting my ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and my ‘no’ be ‘no’, and not dickering around with haggling and negotiating and all those games people play when trying to buy something. I told the woman that we really liked the house, and that we didn’t want to play the negotiation game so if she’d just give us the bottom-line number of what they wanted, we’d talk and make a decision quickly.
She did. We did. And now we have a signed contract and a second house. In the country. With character. Land. A pond. A garden. Trees.
We’re closing at the end of next month, and will have the whole fall, winter, and spring to reshape it into what we want, while still living in Madison. An empty house is far easier to work on than a full one. Our mortgage will be cut almost in half, while our square footage stays nearly the same and our land increases to thirteen times what we have now. A new chapter begins.
Probably you’d like to see it, wouldn’t you? Here you go, a full walkthrough, with descriptive text by Robyn.
We can’t wait to find out if Green Acres really is the place to be.
You guys are truly living the dream. Congratulations!
CONGRATULATIONS! I’m all giddy for you guys — and not a little bit envious.
CONGRATS!!! Love the place! Lots of room for the kitties to play. I am happy for yous!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Aww, congrats you guys! What a lovely place!
Fantastic, you guys! And there’s nothing like living where your neighbors can’t see in your windows.
Wow! Fantastic!
Congrats!
I am so jealous! I love the house!
You’re not just living a dream, you’re living OUR dream! How did you get into my head like that? Maybe someday….
But really, congratulations!
Wow, congratulations to you and Robyn!
Thanks guys.
So who’s waiting for the inevitable “I drove the tractor into the pond” entry in a few months?
House looks fabulous, I really like the front door.
Wow! I am in awe (especially since I live in coastal California, where that house and land would require a millionaire’s bank account) - you are both very lucky and I know you will love your new house. Good thing you really like painting, Fred - how serendipitous is that?
That’s very similar in (outward) appearance to a house I’ve fallen in love with outside of Athens, GA (and have been for the past 20 years). Congratu-fucking-lations Fred and Robyn! Good for you for making your dreams come true. There’s hope for the rest of us.
Cheers!
I was just saying to myself this morning, “Self, that Robyn is up to something, she’s been a LEEETLE too quiet lately”. I just love it when I’m right.
How cool! And I bet fixing it up will make for great journal entries!
Wow! The new house looks great and the space seems perfect for you! Since it was built in the 1930’s, please tell me you had an inspector come in before you submitted a contract? As good as the structure looks, there’s never any guarantee that the previous owners did the updates correctly, or that there wasn’t something wrong that they never fixed. (I hate to even bring this up, since obviously you (and I) love the house so much. But I care.)
I’m a country dweller myself, you’ll love having that much extra land! It’s more yardwork, but I kind of enjoy that anyway. You’ll definitely be needing a riding lawn tractor.
Oh …. does it have access to high speed internet? That’s the one thing I wish we had at home.
Hmm I think it looks like the perfect place for a tiger sanctuary!!
Congratulations, it looks beautiful!!
Martin: Oh …. does it have access to high speed internet?
You bet. That was the first question I asked, and the only dealbreaker.
Sethra: Since it was built in the 1930’s, please tell me you had an inspector come in before you submitted a contract?
Why would we have it inspected first when it’s easy — and free — to just write into the contract that it has to pass inspection?
Congratulations!!! We live in the country, just bought our home less than a year ago and after about four or five months of gutting it and reno, we moved in. I LOVE IT. Now, living in the country has it’s downfalls, like the sale of toilet paper being a bit farther away. But it is so QUIET. And you can do what you want, when you want! Reno is frustrating, time consuming and can be expensive if you don’t know some of the ins and outs. But, it is so worth it. I look through this house and every single spot is something I picked out or cut, or nailed up. Invest in a nail gun! LOL You will love it and Robyn will never let you use it cause she will fall in love with power tools!
Looking at the pictures. The house is gorgeous!! I love the floors, the walls are neat and I am so jealous of your mud room!!!!!!! Note that in the garage there is a riding lawnmower and looking at the yard pictures… You are gonna need one. LOL
Congrats again!!
congratulations! we’ve just moved out into the country too, albeit in somewhere a little different. We’ve been here for two weeks and we absolutely love it. enjoy!
How exciting!!! The kitties are going to either be thrilled with their new open surroundings, or really pissed off that they won’t be able to go explore it all fully.
Ah, dreams do come true! Love the house and all that storage space. I’m wondering if Robyn will still be running errands as often. I’m so happy for both of you. Excitement abounds!
Congrats on the house! I’m sure you’ll have fun fixing it up.
Congrats on the house. It looks very lovely. We bought our first house 3 years ago and we love it. My husband wanted to live in the city, I wanted to live in the country. We found the perfect mix of both. It’s in a nice sized city, but it’s somewhat country living. We live on a secluded dirt road, have about 2 acres of land, our neighbors have horses and we have well water. It’s about 1/2 mile from the highway and 2 miles to shopping. We get the best of both worlds. I loved fixing it up to suit our taste and I’m sure you guys will too.
Congratulations to you both! Your dream sounds an awful lot like mine! Good for you for going for it. I can’t wait to hear all about the colors you choose to paint the rooms and what you decide to do with all that land. So excited for you both!
The house and land are great! You have enough space now to host a blog meet! haha.
Green. Green I tell you! It is so quaint that I expected to see Ma or Pa Walton to be standing on that porch with lemonade in hand. The only problem that I see (that I told to Robyn, too) is where is MY bedroom??
Congrats, Fred!!
Fred - have you seen the movie “Funny Farm?” Chevy Chase and whats-her-name from “Urban Cowboy” move to a little country house in Vermont? That’s what your entry got me thinking about.
“When they say hardwood floors, what they REALLY mean is hard. wood. floors.”
I have all these visions of the zany moving-to-the-country adventures you guys are going to have and I can’t wait to read about them! I’m so happy for you and Robyn and the spud. Enjoy every minute!
Congrats!!! That is such great news! I can’t wait to hear about all the details and renovations. I grew up in the country and can’t wait to move back someday.
Pecan trees? Can you eat the pecans? Just curious. I’m from Canada and I’ve never seen a pecan tree.
Oh - and do you say pee-can or puh-cahn?
Robyn says pee-can, I say puh-cahn.
And yes, you can eat the fool out of them. These are the kind of trees that grow the same nuts you find in brownies. Two trees this big should produce over a hundred pounds a year. That’s a lotta nuts.
Congratulations!! That’s exactly the type of place I’ve wanted forever! I grew up on a farm, and I hate urban living, BUT I married a city boy 27 years ago, somehow raised two city slicker offspring, so here I sit, listening to the traffic and construction sounds. *sigh*
I can’t wait to see progress pictures!!! If you need help painting, etc. I’ve got lots of experience! HEH
Wow - a hundred pounds? You guys could package them and sell them online. I’m sure a lot of people would buy “Anderson nuts” hahhahaaha
I guess the true southerner says puh-cahn…
So very exciting…..I can’t wait to see the updates and changes you make. Very happy for you both!
Oooh, I have assvice! You might be able to have The Spud ‘move in’ with family or friends who live in the school district. Just register that address as her home, even though she’s living with you in your wonderful new home. Parents used to do this a lot where I grew up - there were two small towns only twenty minutes apart, but one school sucked and the other was decent. The superintendents and principals were well aware of the phenomenon, but I don’t think it was illegal. Eventually they unified the district and distributed funds more equally, but that’s neither here nor there.
Just a thought.
Fred Why would we have it inspected first when it’s easy — and free — to just write into the contract that it has to pass inspection?
See. That’s why Fred = Smarter than Sethra.
Oooooh, a house built in the 30s! Wouldn’t it be cool if it turned out to be haunted! I’d love to read some ghost-story entries!
You’re getting a bungalow! I have one too, it was born in 1947. It’s my dream house!
Aw,Heidi beat me to it,but you have a freaking CRAFTSMAN !!!
I am the official freakiest Craftsman fan!
You have my dream home and I just will have to live vicariously through you until I get my own!
They even have websites and CATALOGS for Craftsman and Bungalow owners to fix their homes up with all of the appropiate time period drawer pulls,brackets,doors-you name it,they have it.
I know how much you love ADVICE,But I will only give you one tidbit that I heard on CURB APPEAL on HGTV last night,
When replacing windows,wood insulates eleven HUNDRED times better than aluminum. I did not know that.
Well,congratulations. No one deserves it more than you!!!
I’m just giddy with the entries to be from you & Robyn. I’m very happy for you both. I’m real handy with power tools, can I come live above the garage for awhile?
Don’t tempt us, Jo — our to-do list is getting so long it’s almost intimidating.
this is just so fantastic for you all. hurray!