We may have lost our minds

Normal people go out for a nice dinner date on their anniversary or take a weekend getaway.  Not the Brays.  :)  We closed on an 80 year old dumpy, abandoned house yesterday which happened to be our 9 year anniversary. 

These first couple pictures outside were taken in April before the trees really bloomed

Our friend from church first told us about it in the middle of April.  It went back and forth on whether or not it would happen.  At one point we walked away, but two weeks later the guy made us an incredible offer we couldn't refuse.  The two main reasons we decided to get the house was it will be a cheaper house payment, and the location is beautiful.  We have 4 acres and the east side of our property is connected to 40 acres of new bike/walking trails Rogers is currently putting in. As you will see in the pictures below there is a TON of work, but even after we fix it up we will still have a house payment that will be about $200 a month cheaper than what we currently pay.  

 

Front of house facing main road.  Basement only goes halfway back.  It's where the kids' room and bathroom will be.

Back of the house is built into a hill and the garage is up next to it.  The garage is "newer" than the rest of the house.

Living Room.  There is Zac and David - the guy that told us about it.  He works for the parks department and is working on the trails and park next to our property.

Yellow room was a child's bedroom on main floor, but we will use it as an office/sewing room because our master room is pretty small.  The pic on right is our master closet. :/

Zac heading to basement and the right is a formal dining room, but we'll probably do something else with that space.

Oh the kitchen.  I don't have a current pic, but Zac completely gutted it.  There was some leaks that rotted out a lot of the wood subfloor and lower cabinets.  So everything but the upper cabinets are gone...including a huge hole in the floor.  The right pic is the dining nook to the left of the kitchen.

Before and After of the mudroom/laundry room.  Although now it's even more gutted.  Tiles and wood paneling are gone.

Bathroom also had to be completely gutted due to water damage.  Yes that is more holes in the subfloor.

Before and After in one of the basement rooms.

Other room in basement.  Boys will probably be in this portion.

 

I didn't take a picture of the basement bathroom.  It is covered in pink tile.  Would like to replace it if we have room in the budget.  Mason would probably love to keep it since he tells me almost every day that pink is his favorite color. 

here is more of our property looking at the back of the house  Also taken in April

Here is a picture from today of the house from the bottom of the driveway.  Love how it is hidden in the trees.

So we are pretty excited!  It took us a full month to close because of having to get land surveys and stuff done, but the seller let us go ahead and start demoing it.  We've probably put in around 100 hrs of work over the past month just clearing out junk and demoing.  We are hoping to be able to move in about 2 months.  Say a prayer for us...it's going to be crazy up in here.  Not to mention that we are trying to catch and keep out the vandals and thieves that keep coming up to the property, but that's a wild story for another day.