The ladytheorist and I finally found a house we liked and that was in our price range. Yah! It’s a 108-year-old rather run-down farmhouse a couple of miles outside of Eudora. The house needs a bunch of work, but the property rocks. It sits on a couple of acres of land and looks north over the Kansas River.
It will be a wonderful home for us once we’re done with it.
I miss the country some days. Mostly I miss the sound and the stars. Though I’ve grown increasingly cynical over the years, I’ve never lost the childlike wonder of staring up into the heavens. A few evenings ago, I was locking the place up for the night and loading my car to head back to town. I glanced up at the sky. I forget sometimes how beautiful the night sky is. My friend Ryan used to say, “Sure you can see the stars in the city, you can even count them.”
I miss not being able to count the stars.
Okay, enough waxing poetic, below are some of the early pics. I’m going to try and put up one post a week updating the work we’re doing. Let me know what you think!
12 responses so far ↓
Wow! You guys are jumping into this thing feet first, eh? Place looks great. If you need some help, I have most tools and some specialty ones as well. What’s the plan for the floors? I just got done laying some bamboo flooring. Real easy. Looks great. How’s the plumbing? Have you heard of the new quick connect fittings? SHarkbite, and whatnot. Pretty awesome stuff. If you do all new, it is really simple. So many questions… you should just call me.
mikey
That’s a lot of wood paneling.
Way to take advantage of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and get it while it’s cheap.
Good luck.
Great looking property! Enough work to keep ya out of mischif for awhile.
Looks great, and congratulations again. I’m still pretty young but I often dream of owning a house in a beautiful place like that. It seems like a wonderful change of pace from a crowded city life.
Thanks everyone!
Mikey, I will have to call you about the bamboo flooring, I had been looking at some. The flooring in the entire house has to be removed. We are thinking carpet in the living room, as the wood paneling with wood floors might make the room feel a bit too “woody.” We would like to go with hardwood or bamboo flooring in some of the other rooms.
The pine paneling in the living room is definitely staying. We’ll rip out the rest of the crappy, cheap fake paneling in the rest of the house.
So much work out there, but it’s fun. I’ll keep posting pics over time to update how it’s going.
The place looks like a keeper and nary a crack or meth-addled boogin in sight! Way to go! I can’t wait to see it in person.
If you are ripping up all the flooring, I’d go with all bamboo. I also encourage you to live my dream and put in radiant heating throughout. If you’ve already got the floor up, why not? You just put a solar water heater on the roof and bam! Free heat!
I’m jealous of the scale of this project. It looks like fun! It will surely keep you both off the streets for the foreseeable future. Can’t wait to see the updates!
I forgot to mention my added jealously that you have the chance to lay Cat6 throughout the entire house! Yes, I am an uber-Geek!
I’m so thrilled for you guys! It’s going to look amazing when you’re done with it, I can’t wait to see what you do. Congrats!
So very happy for you! How wonderful!
What a view!!!!!!!!!
Love the pine. My mother’s room had that. I got all nostalgic seeing it. 🙂 Nice BIG kitchen. Acres even!!!!!!!! What a treasure in the rough. You could probably do wind power up there as well as solar and even fiber optic lighting..no bulbs required. I have the books that show how to build a wind unit. Actually, I have everything you need for off -the -grid -living and even bio fuel production. Let me know if you need some good titles.
So happy for both of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MAJOR CONGRATS ! Mazel Tov my friend! What a blessing!
Patrick,
I have pretty extensively looked at radiant heat heat floors and we’re still debating if we want to go that route. I’m trying to get a decent idea about what the cost difference will be. We still have to make sure our dreams don’t exceed our budget 🙂
I’m also seriously thinking about running CAT through the walls, but I’m wondering how necessary that is nowadays with in-house wi-fi networks. A few years ago, the time and money to string cable made more sense than it does now.
@Lisa
Thanks! I’m very interested in looking at some off-the-grid energy sources in the future, though I doubt we do them right now. We’ve got too many other projects that our time and money need to go into first.
Wow. I love that view. I’m incredibly jealous of all the “space” outside, being hemmed in by the suburbs, but I definitely don’t envy the amount of work! I grew up in an 1899 Queen Anne, and my parents were ALWAYS remodeling. Good luck to you on this to-be dream home!
WOW!!! I’m soo happy for you guys!! Its looks like some work but i have faith in you!! I just moved back to the area so give a girl a call once in a while!! Tell Tam hi for me! And yes, I am well aware that I over use exclaimation points…