Walking away from our leaking house

As this



And this


(water soaking our garage)

Were happening to our house...

We were here


Completely ignoring it.

Much like the crappy paint job the previous owners put on the inside of the house before they moved, they also did a crappy exterior paint job before we bought it.  The paint all around the house (2 years after we bought it) is cracking and pooling water under it.

We just committed to buying a portion of a falling down river house, have baby coming in four months and an au pair coming from across the world, need to build out our basement to house said au pair, and now we're looking at a full strip, calk and paint job on our house!  Whoop De Doo!  Is it horrible that I'm looking forward to picking out paint colors? 

But...as we're packed and just starting to relax a bit before our 5am flight to paradise, my husband shows me where the rain is actually leaking INTO our house.

Inside the built-ins in the dining room - in a back corner, a giant (like 4in x 4in piece of caulk popped out and behind it a stream of water - and there is more caulk behind that - and the front of the house behind that).  I suppose this is a lesson in not buying a house that used to be a rental.  The owners had no pride in ownership, didn't care about fixing things with long term solutions, etc.

But, we're here in paradise.





It is difficult to get to see my husband's family - they live all over and in difficult places to get to (expensive for three of us and at least two flights and mostly a long ass drive in places where you can't get fresh vegetables, fish, or wine on Sunday).



This is our second "holiday" trip to visit them in a tropical location.

2011 - Sanibel, Florida
2012 - Tulum, Mexico

Bubbs and I honeymooned here and loved every second of it.



And, while we aren't spending quite as much time gazing into each other's eyes, that is actually happening here - with a 2 year old.  This place is magical.

This year we are renting a HUGE house on the beach on Soliman Bay - which is amazing b/c the water is calm and warm and T can safely play at the edge, walk through the water, and be a free-range kid.

He spent the first few days weary of the "waves," the dogs, the new "beach house."

But the dude is ballsy now in a way I've never seen him.

Yesterday, he opened the front door to the house and announced, "I'm leaving for the beach."  He doesn't leave our front door at home!

He's been afraid of dogs his entire life, but is now in love with the dogs that live on the property (though I HATE them since they have woken him up every night with their barking).



He runs back and forth from the water to the sand toys up closer, takes off for "water walks," and has latched onto his auntie, uncle, and grandma, despite only seeing them twice a year at most (plus skype occasionally).




He love "walking his dog."

The place we are staying is fantastic.

Seven days is a long time for vacation, and I honestly wouldn't have loved it if I were not a parent, but I need 7 days to unwind, get into a routine, and really start enjoying myself (by day 3).




The quality time here is something we never get.

Quality time with each other, Tim's family, and our boy.

As we packed for this trip, we kept telling ourselves this was the last one for a long time due to financial obligations.

I'm having a hard time believing that at this point.

More on our trip later - for now my coffee is brewing :)

This __ close to total chaos

At this point there's only one thing standing in our way - apparently this house may not be insurable by our normal insurance agents so we have to find high risk agents.  It might be due to the fact that it is over 100 years old, in the forest, and has 1/2 a foundation.

Hopefully we can find someone to insure it until we can do some updates.  If we can find someone then we will actually be 1/3 owners of this amazing disaster!

In the meantime, I dream of my summers there.

When we went up for a final walk-through yesterday, T went into this room, started dancing and yelling, "mama, I love this room!"



Not exactly my reaction - but close.

He thinks the "carpet is beautiful!"  The "carpet room" is the "master."  The only true bedroom on the main floor of the house.

Underneath there are two additional bedrooms and full bathroom - the plan is to add a staircase so all the bedrooms can be used as part of the main house.

This room will likely be his room when we go stay - it is the width of the entire house and all windows.








Think I can figure out a way to re-use that magical chandelier?

This disaster of a living room is a fantastic dream.  Redwood floors are under that carpet.  Granted, they are sticking up at all angles - but beautiful redwood floors.



Bubbs will be building me window seats in both of these windows.


 I miss mine from our old house oh so much.


Carpet in the kitchen?  LOVE IT!

Yeah - kidding.

The cabinets are actually in okay condition and the fridge is clean and doesn't smell!

Hopefully there's room in our budget for a little new countertop.

The drop ceiling will go almost immediately - above it are original windows that look out into the yard with redwood trees - windows the size of the entire house.




We're planning to either move the washer/dryer/waterheater downstairs into an open area, or build cabinets around the water heater and a stackable washer/dryer right in the kitchen.  The water heater is braced just like it should be - the one thing done actually right in this house!



This shower apparently has rocks from the river as the shower floor (according to the 15 year old next door).  These beautiful rocks leak as does the rest of the shower.


The shower is getting re-tiled (and waterproofed) with white square boring tiles.  As is the tub surround.


We think this used to be a dumb waiter (or coal cart) from under the house - now it is a medicine cabinet.



Do you love the carpet in the watercloset?


How about how the toilet has been leaking for years and the floor is about to rot out and fall off the house?  How creepy is it that there's no sink in the toilet room?  How do you solve that problem?

Since the house is on a major hill (MAJOR) the "yard" is all decked.  This is one sunny deck with stairs leading up to the hot tub.






This deck gets amazing sunshine most of the day - it also has a cracked foundation, falling down railings and is on the neighbor's land by 3 ft.

Along with all the space comes a completely rotted structure:


All of the roof eaves are rotted (roof is okay)
Structure support beams are dryrotted and eaten by termites - like the beams that hold up the house.
The septic tank is a wooden box in the ground under the house - yeah - that is not going to work.
The decks are completely rotted, there is a concrete patio that is falling down the side of the house.
Squirrels live in the drop ceilings, woodpeckers put holes in all of the siding.
The pest inspector said this was his worst nightmare!

And soon it will be OURS!

Even though we have zero budget for furnishings or decor, my pinterest boards are filled with inspiration.

Hopefully in the next two days we'll get the green light from the insurance company.

It is like groundhog day over here

Just as life gets a little crazier, we decide to make it more crazy.

Our disaster is now almost 6 months more disastrous.  We've put three DIFFERENT offers on the house, been rejected three times, become so fricken frustrated with Fannie Mae, but decided to play their game because after hunting for quite some time - this is our house.

A friend of mine today told me she thought we must be independently wealthy to be able to do this. So lemme set the record straight.  This is a hell hole, for one.  We're going in with two other parties, for two (so we're really buying 1/3 of a river house), and three, the property up there is still so cheap compared to the rest of california - granted, where my inlaws live, you could buy a really nice 2-3 bedroom house that needed no work for the price we're buying this for, but we're in California wine country :) We're also cutting back significantly to be able to afford it.  No more vacations outside of this house, cutting our eating out budget, etc, etc, etc.

We're 1 day away from coming to agreement (ah, if I could only count the number of time I typed that already - who knows how close we actually are) - and after that, the mess and a half is ours!

Hopefully 6 months is enough to make it livable enough to enjoy the summer there with our new baby.  I'll be on maternity leave from March - July so I'm hoping for hot weeks at a time in our sunny heaven on the beach.  Plus, 75% of the time I work from home, so the babysitter can take the kids while I work, but we can wake up in the redwoods, drink wine in the hot tub after the kids are asleep, and not turn into evil beasts due to the fogged in summer.

Anyway, once we get confirmation, I'm posting pics :)

Does my bedroom look like a hotel room?

So, everyone who has stepped into my new and improved bedroom has said that it looks like a hotel room.  Cool by me!  I LOVE it.

When we moved into this house, we lost our mellow groovy all white and textured vibe and went with a more playful colorful toddler proof look.  My bedroom never really felt like a place to relax, but more like a place where all the leftover furniture went to die.

I did everything I could, but I never really liked our old bedroom.





There was too much empty space, not enough cohesion, and though I loved each piece individually, they just didn't seem to GO together.

Since Young House Love posted their idea about wardrobes flanking their bed, I thought it looked cool, but we always had plenty of storage.

Till we thought about where we would put two children.

T's room was tiny, but worked really well for just him.



But there was no room for a crib, let alone another floor bed or clothes for an additional person.

I was happy to give up my "big" room and trade for a smaller one.

So we did.

One morning while Bubbs and T were occupied, I painted the room dark grey.  Bubbs was HORRIFIED when he got home (it did look almost black in the evening) and T was pretty disturbed that his room wasn't there anymore.

We had ordered Ikea kitchen cabinets to fit the 30" spaces beside the bed, ikea curtains, and drawers and shelves for the kitchen cabinets.  They arrived in huge boxes.

The next day, Bubbs got going on putting together the cabinets while I put together T's new room.

By 6pm, both rooms were done.  Well, mostly done.


We hung the curtains via Young House Love's method (.79 cheapo curtain hangers). 

I bought the wrong kind of drawers, so they sit to be returned.

We purchased $50 swing-arm lights and installed them from Home Depot.

The chandelier had to be hacked (from Cost Plus) since we didn't have an overhead light in that room.  I bought the wrong color chain, so we'll fix that eventually, but for now it works!  I have to say I was totally impressed that Bubbs knew how to make that work.

We still have some art to hang on the opposite walls.

The light puts a honey comb pattern on the walls so T is obsessed with our "beehive" room and LOVES to snuggle in his hive and hide.

The closed in head of the bed is SO cozy and we keep saying how much we love hte room every time we go to sleep.

T's new room is a MAJOR hit.


I need to patch some spots on the wall still and re-arrange some art, but dude plays in his room SO much more than he used to!






There's room for the baby's crib and eventually a floor bed where the wicker chair is now.



Plus, this might sound nuts, but the "view" from each room is better with the new set up.  Since we mostly sit on the floor in T's room, all you can see is the blue sky and a few tree tops (rather than before, in our room, you would sit on the bed and see the cars parked in the neighbor's backyard).

And in our new room, since you sit on the bed, you see the blue sky as well instead of the stucco and dirt on the neighbor's house.

Overall, total success.