Yes, We Made a House Decision!

Ever since we got off the road in June, our lives have been hanging in the balance. What do we do? Get an apartment and a trailer? Buy a house? Split up so I can get healthcare while Tracy goes back on the road, then reconvene when I have stable health? (That one was hardly an option at all, but we were grasping at straws.). It’s been nine long months. I could have made a person in that time.

Finally, we’ve decided to go with the renovation and keep the house. Actually, we haven’t signed a contract with the builder, but we’re damned close.

The Problem

To refresh your memory on the exciting drama of Shelly and Tracy and Banjo’s living arrangements, here’s a quickie summary.

When we bought this house, we knew it needed work. We bought it at a low(ish) price knowing we’d put the money we would have spent on a more expensive house into making this one look nice. But then, it turns out to need a lot more work than expected to get it safe to live in, so much that we don’t have enough left in the budget to make it attractive to live in.

After months of trying to buy a house, the jury was out if we would even keep the one we finally bought. Our chosen builder still might have said that it would cost so much for us to renovate that the house wouldn’t be worth it. We didn’t want it to be the most expensive house in the neighborhood by far, and we didn’t want to pour every last cent we own into it, either.

To be clear, I’m not talking tens of thousands of dollars that we were tearing our hair out about, I’m talking hundred of thousands of dollars. Ten is plenty for a person to tear out hair, but hundreds is enough for full-on de-limbing.

The Solution

To keep the house, we’re making compromises. The two, ancient bathrooms will stay pretty much as they are. We won’t build a garage. No porch on the flat roof out back. No patio. No re-paved driveway. No ballroom (whew).

What are we getting, after we get done with all the important, safety-type stuff?

We’re knocking down three interior walls downstairs so that the full south side of the house will be one open room, with sunshine coming through all five windows into one large space.

That one open room will be—back of the house to the front—a small mudroom-type area and a small nook for a laundry room, then a long kitchen that opens into the current living room. The kitchen will be entirely new.

The room on the north side of the house that used to be the kitchen will now be a bedroom.

See? Voila. When we’re done, the laundry machines that were in the basement will be on the main floor, and the bedroom that used to be upstairs will be on main floor. We’ll have everything we need for old-folk living, all on one floor.

It’s a good thing we do have the second floor, though, because that’s where we’ll have to live while the renovations take place this summer.

We’re set in the bedroom up there already, but we’ll have to shove our new TV up the stairs somehow and get it, plus a couple of chairs, into the guest room. (We’ll put the sofa outside, in the giant shed Tracy’s having built out back, which does sound kind of like the freaking White House ballroom in Tracy’s plans.)

We’ll make the upstairs kitchen, from when this place was two apartments, back into a kitchen again, at least a little one. We’ll buy a mini fridge and a hot plate; we already have a portable microwave and there’s still a good sink up there. Heck, the best sink in the house!

It’s not like we’re inexperienced at living in small spaces, right?

Down the Road

Right now, the builders are tweaking the contract for us to sign. As they’re obtaining permits and ordering cabinets, we’ll be moving upstairs and ordering the Big Beautiful Shed. As soon as the shed goes in, we’ll finish the fence, and Banjo will have her very own back yard, for her to lie in the sunshine whenever her heart desires.

Now, you fans of Shelly Strange, no worries that, just because we’re fixing up this old house, we won’t make it weird. I have a few plans up my sleeve. I’ve already started collecting photo mats and frames at ReStore and plan to plaster the house with photos from our life on the road.

If I can keep myself from buying too many indoor trees, I plan on asking a carpenter to build for Banjo an elevated bed so she can lie under one of those south-facing windows like a cat. That should make up, in part, for us taking her off the road.

I do plan on revving up that large aquarium as soon as the renovation is done, and that should be tons of fun. don’t know if I’ll have room for much else that’s weird, but, probably, one doesn’t need much room to be as weird as one’s heart desires.

That’s the news! As I posted elsewhere, I would have insisted we go out for beers to celebrate, but Tracy is feeling rather glum about all the money we’re spending, and I’m still unable to drink because of my meds, so here’s a photo from the archives of us celebrating something else. We’re actually inside in the freaking cold Wisconsin spring instead, but I’m going to celebrate in my own weird way tomorrow by getting all of my hair cut off and wearing my new (to me) leather dress somewhere inappropriate. Oh, wait, there is no such thing as an inappropriate place to wear something weird in Madison. Ah well, I’ll wear it anyway.

Cheers!