Chickie'sMomaInNH
Garden Master
my father in law passed away over 6 weeks ago and we have been trying to get his house clean out of a lot of stuff(mostly junk) he had been keeping over the 30+ years he had been living there. my dh is his only living son so he got all that was left including the house and the 2 cars. one car we've given away to my dh's nephew and the other is a GMC Sonoma truck so i am deciding if i want to keep it but i don't drive a 5 speed so we may end up selling it and using the $$ to get me an automatic truck for my gardening/landscaping/chicken chores.
the bigger question is what to do with his house which is fully paid off while we still have almost 26 years left on our mortgage! his house is over 100+ years old, has an acre of land, 2 larger bedrooms, possibility for a second bathroom, a root cellar, pantry area, more space, a nice new furnace with no issues
a wood stove as backup heat, and not directly on a busy street near the highway! oh, and did i mention more space!!!
the issues with his 100+ year old house is that he didn't keep a lot of it maintained well. he had been fixing some of it up the past few years but mostly stuff related to heating, stairs going to basement, and the porch overhang supports. being so old it has horse hair plaster crumbling in areas like the upstairs ceiling and a few walls. the sill plates will need replacing (we have done this to our own house so we know how to do it). the kitchen sub-floors will need to be ripped up and redone since there was water damage from a freezer getting so full of frost (more like tons of ice!) that when he tried to defrost it 3 years ago and then ended up in the hospital, it gushed all over the floors and caused it to rot even more. :/ the beams running under the floors still look sturdy so i know those didn't get damaged. there is a deck area on the back but the wood rotted away years ago and what is left is the cement block support/foundation walls that could be turned into outside storage. there is no garage on the property or any sheds (or in the case of my chickens-a coop), so those would have to be built eventually if we chose this house to live in.
dh has been out of work off and on for the past couple of years so right now he has time to go through the house and decide what to keep, throw out or sell. the bigger issue is that we already are strapped to our mortgage with our small cape style house with 1 very small bathroom (with just a shower and no tub ), with 1/2 acre, garage, a busy street living across from the Dept of Public Works, the highway traffic about 2000' away from the house. we are paying about $1400 per month to stay here.
if we chose to renovate his dad's house it would costs us about $400+ per month for taxes and home owners insurance. any extra money saved would go to fixing up the place over time! our house is in decent shape and close enough to town but still on the outskirts that it is nice for a small, just starting out family or someone looking to downsize. (we have no kids and don't plan on them at this point). i'm just worried about this economy and if we would be able to sell either house. if we sold our house i would try to get what we initially paid for it and that is about the current going price in our area for a nice house.
the bigger question is what to do with his house which is fully paid off while we still have almost 26 years left on our mortgage! his house is over 100+ years old, has an acre of land, 2 larger bedrooms, possibility for a second bathroom, a root cellar, pantry area, more space, a nice new furnace with no issues
a wood stove as backup heat, and not directly on a busy street near the highway! oh, and did i mention more space!!! the issues with his 100+ year old house is that he didn't keep a lot of it maintained well. he had been fixing some of it up the past few years but mostly stuff related to heating, stairs going to basement, and the porch overhang supports. being so old it has horse hair plaster crumbling in areas like the upstairs ceiling and a few walls. the sill plates will need replacing (we have done this to our own house so we know how to do it). the kitchen sub-floors will need to be ripped up and redone since there was water damage from a freezer getting so full of frost (more like tons of ice!) that when he tried to defrost it 3 years ago and then ended up in the hospital, it gushed all over the floors and caused it to rot even more. :/ the beams running under the floors still look sturdy so i know those didn't get damaged. there is a deck area on the back but the wood rotted away years ago and what is left is the cement block support/foundation walls that could be turned into outside storage. there is no garage on the property or any sheds (or in the case of my chickens-a coop), so those would have to be built eventually if we chose this house to live in.
dh has been out of work off and on for the past couple of years so right now he has time to go through the house and decide what to keep, throw out or sell. the bigger issue is that we already are strapped to our mortgage with our small cape style house with 1 very small bathroom (with just a shower and no tub
), with 1/2 acre, garage, a busy street living across from the Dept of Public Works, the highway traffic about 2000' away from the house. we are paying about $1400 per month to stay here. if we chose to renovate his dad's house it would costs us about $400+ per month for taxes and home owners insurance. any extra money saved would go to fixing up the place over time! our house is in decent shape and close enough to town but still on the outskirts that it is nice for a small, just starting out family or someone looking to downsize. (we have no kids and don't plan on them at this point). i'm just worried about this economy and if we would be able to sell either house. if we sold our house i would try to get what we initially paid for it and that is about the current going price in our area for a nice house.
