Start fixing up and get away from your little phone screens. That generation is lacking in hands on physical labor. Now they will get smarter and real world educated.
Dealing with cheating contrators will be an education.
“Dealing with cheating contrators will be an education.”
Not to mention what heating and cooling those old houses can cost.
Built in 1885 it probably has 10 ft ceilings and large windows and doors.
Then the taxes come into play.
Heheh, welcome to reality youngsters!
Don’t get me started about North Idaho contractors.
I bought a very large, 100-year-old "mansion" in rural W. TN a few years ago, and continue to put money into rennovation. Personally I love it - no regrets at all.
It didn't take me long to learn to get referrals for decent contractors at the local hardware store (friendly folks!).
Last summer we re-concreted the driveway and put in some gravel parking spaces for guests (it's on 3 acres). We've got some wood curing so that we can put in an ornamental wooden farm fence along the parking area. I intend to hang a sign on the fence that reads "GG" (few will realize that's for "Galt's Gulch"), and put some planters at the base of the fence. Next week we start rennovating the bathroom that will be attached to what will be my Mother's bedroom.
This summer we'll start restoring a concrete side patio that looks out over the koi pond to it's original glory, and updating the inside stairs to be more Gone-With-The-Wind-ish. I also want to get some raised gardens in the back yard, and construct a hen house and chicken pen that will accommodate 16 chickens.
I also need to get the koi pond cleaned up some to make this Spring's bullfrogs happy (we like to sit out on the front porch at night and listen to them croak) and get started re-building the original greenhouse that used to be attached out back.
I've got new appliances being delivered next week.
Downtown looks like a ghost town until you start to appreciate the "bright spots". There's only one restaurant in town, and when you go in on a Friday night for the fish fry, everybody knows you and says hello.
Lately I've been thinking that if I turned one of those abandoned buildings on Main Street into a pizza place I'd probably do real well.
I'm hoping to get moved in before the "lightning bugs" show up this Spring. They put on a real light show out back in the evenings.
It can absolutely take some dollars to get these old places whipped into shape, but it should be built into the purchase price. And, if you don't have the money immediately, you just do without for a while (I lived on the property for the first couple of years that I got it, and had to "live without"). But getting these old places fixed up can really be its own reward, IMHO.
Yeah, and just wait until they start having to deal with the onerous, if not impossible regulations democrats have put into place to “protect” both the environment and us from ourselves.
I wonder how man6 of them thought of wetland issues, bad water, radon in basements, and asbestos and lead remediation.
Then I chuckled and wondered how long they're going to keep those ugly solar panels. They don't work up here. All the locals who had them a decade ago finally got rid of them.
Those modern un-green solar panels are so out of place in the middle of God's country. They look so un-environmental. There should be a law against them.
“Dealing with cheating contrators will be an education.”
I’d almost be willing to put up with cheating contractors if they’d even show up as promised, or return phone calls.
Wait until they pay the electric bills in the communist state of Connecticut