A new "old" idea!

Okay so I realize this house thing may be getting old to anyone other than ourselves... however I feel we are finally gaining some headway here. With some help from Kevin's boss we have had a significant realization on our situation. It seems that a builders mortgage may be possible afterall(!) Now, before you read further I'm going to emphasize "MAY be possible", as we haven't finalized any details with the bank yet. I have had a few conversations with our bank, some lengthy and some short, leading me to believe that the chances are in our favour. We know right away that we won't be approved for much, but we may be approved for exactly what we need to build a rather cute little house on a lot in an area which is beginning to boom. We were on our way to look at an average size lot with a mobile home on it, located in Canal Flats (about 40min. South of Invermere and 40min. North of Cranbrook, on hwy.93/95). The mobile itself is quite old but in somewhat decent condition. We thought it was liveable, until we brought Kev's boss out to have a look with us. He had doubts about the roof (lots of leaks and caves in the ceiling) and proceded to tell us that for the same price and a larger lot, he could hook us up with a larger house package with Nelson Homes. The only difference is the huge amount of work & sacrifice (mostly on kev's part, read on to find out why) which comes with building your own house. It does seem exciting though! Now, onto the sacrifice, which leads us to WHY this may all suddenly be possible: 1st) Kevin has decided to sell his bike. No, not the downhill bike. The motorbike. The 2007 Yamaha V-twin 1100 bike. The one he had been eyeing for quite some time, dreaming about for years, and finally purchasing with pride and joy 5 months ago when we were blessed with a financial opportunity to get rid of our debt and indulge in one nice thing. We purchased it knowing full well it was not a practical purchase, but also sensing at the time that living on one income and having a growing family, we may not get a chance like this again. We had hopes of leaving the kiddies with the Grandparents and doing a bike trip every summer, as something special to do together for many years to come (some people do florida, we do roadtrips). So despite everyones lack of sympathy, I do feel for Kev and his momentarily crushed dream as he says goodbye to his pride and joy... but I try to remind him that when we sell the house there will be another opportunity to re-live the dream:) AND that he will get a brand spankin new house out of the deal(!), which is likely to double in value over the next couple years! That is a blessing which also does not come along very often and should be grabbed if at all possible. So we are both excited at this possibility, inspite of the sacrifices. 2nd) Being a carpenter with 4years of experience, Kevin will be soley responsible for this house being built. It will be evenings and weekends nonstop until it is done, b/c as you all know by now, there is a bundle due to arrive August 30th and he/she will not wait for the house to be done. We're hoping to have it complete by then b/c we plan to rent a teeny-tiny suite in Canal Flats so that our rent is not so large while paying a new mortgage. Kevin's friend/work buddy is also planning to build a house very soon and they have agreed to help one another until completion. If this goes through we will need all the help we can get. Anybody know how to swing a hammer? Any plumbers? Drywallers? I would gladly get in there and help (seriously - for those who don't know me) but being pregnant and having one child already, I may be a little "unable" at the time. But heck, I can give moral support, if that counts(?). So the reason this suddenly becomes possible financially, is b/c we didn't realize that the first stage of building would be so inexpensive. With Kev selling his bike we may have enough to cover the required amount to qualify for a builders mortgage. It's a little difficult to explain if you're unfamiliar with it so I may come back to this in another post, once we've been to the bank to work out all the details. Okay, so that's about all I have to say. It's alot, I know. So here's a few pictures to rest your weary eyes: The LOT: http://rockymtnrealty.com/index.php?action=listingview&listingID=708 (click on the smaller pics below the larger one to get a better idea of the lots - it is quite flat but pics really don't do justice to the surrounding mountains) The HOUSE: http://www.nelson-homes.com/index.php?page_id=view_home&housename=springfield&vh_low_sqft=1&vh_high_sqft=20000&house_collection=leisure (scroll way down to see the pic. the only thing we haven't budgeted for that you'll see here is the partial wrap-around deck. that's a future purchase/build)

Pasta pasta pasta

So Mom thought it would be "convenient" to give Attie pasta for lunch, thus she could eat by herself, while Mom eats her own lunch. I don't know why I was surprised to look back and see her rubbing her tomato-stained hands in her eyes and hair while waving her plate around in the air... **sigh** ...aw well. She had fun. Here's a few of the less messy photos (i thought i best stop taking pictures and just clean it up before it gets outrageous). Have you ever seen a cuter tomato sauce stained little girl in your whole life?!!! Never. You couldn't be mad at this face for 1/100th of a second if she had opened the fridge door herself, pulled out an entire jar of pasta sauce from the top shelf and smeared it all over the house. She wears a look of complete innocence. ...boy are we in trouble;)

Feast your eyes on this!

First of all, this post was supposed to appear AFTER the next post but blogger won't let me do that. If you don't mind, you may want to read the post titled "Unimaginable" first. It'll make more sense. Thanks! This first pic gives you an idea of the beautiful mountain view (top left portion of pic) a person would have if they had a 2-storey house on the lot (minus the garden shed in the back)... but it is quickly distorted with a view of this: You'll see here that the "new" tin roof is fashionable in a stainless-steel sort of way, not to mention falling apart and leaking. The black space you see behind the saw-horse is actually the door to a stale-smelling storage space, in which you can see the concrete foundation cracking. How does anybody live in here??? Yes, the landlord is currently renting it out to a rather eccentric fella (it better not be more than $100/month). You'll notice the lovely grey paper covering the insulation which was placed on the OUTSIDE of the walls. Again, what the..?

The windows are single-pane and have no sealant around the edges. Hmm... great for cozy winter days. On a possitive note, there is a brand new sliding glass door which the tenant installed recently.

Here we have Devon appearing overly zealous about the place - what a good sport!! This is the livingroom looking to the kitchen (there's small square opening to see in behind the furnace). And actually, by the looks of the big box of old celery sticks & unusable food-stained stove in the kitchen and big pot on the furnace, we arrived just in time for soup! Soup anybody?? Kidding. I'm only assuming. I had to assume something good. I was afraid. So the kitchen would need a new fridge, stove and countertops. We'd also have to replace the smoke-stained fir floors, which are apparently a real hastle to sand down. And there's no gas heating. Just a wood stove. The bedroom. Not tooooooo shabby... kind of. If you ignore the smell of stale cigarettes, pretend not to see the filthy walls and imagine it empty, it had potential. Hang on.. what is on the ceiling? Is that a skylight beneath the tin roof? The bathroom. It had one good thing going for it - the HUGE cement shower/hot tub. It wasn't finished of course but would have been a great idea! To make this room liveable you'd at least have to purchase a new toilet, vanity and put some actual flooring in. Well, that concludes our tour. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! Once again, I'll confirm the big fat NO on buying this place. Even if he did lower his price significantly to the point where we could afford to tear this down and build a new home, we'd have to take out a builders mortgage, which isn't possible for us right now. Funny how renting doesn't seem so bad after all aye?

Unimaginable...

Just imagine you're sitting infront of the tv, and you accidentally flip past one of those home-reno shows (or perhaps deliberately, if you're like me) only to see the worst excuse for a house you've ever seen... of course you'd be tempted to see what becomes of it but you're skeptical. "There's no way they can make this look even half decent" you think, but continue to watch, betting against the unfortunate home owners as they begin the unthinkable task of turning crap into.. well, something a little less resemblant of crap. That's what I thought as we drove up for our first glimpse of a cabin which was advertised in the paper for a price which was actually within our budget (he was asking $94,000). My first thought was an automatic - "no way - that can't be it - what's the address again?". My second thought was "oh my gosh.. ...", followed by "you've GOT to be kidding", and last of all, complete hysterical laughter. Let's just say this "cabin" is a bigger piece of crap than the picture of the little green house (which is actually kinda cute and has become rather appealing in my opinion) in my post entitled "A New Dream". On Sunday we headed out to take the grand tour of the cabin. We brought our friends Devon & Ethan b/c Ethan has been a journeyman for a few years now and has a pretty good idea of what to look for as far as structural "musts". Before we had a detailed look at this thing, we actually contemplated the idea of turning this 800sq. ft. little shack (only about 600 sq. ft. is usable, the rest is storage space along the walls) into a much nicer 2-storey cabin. "WHY?" you are asking. Well b/c the location is the supposedly the next big real estate bang and the property & reno-costs may be within our budget - plus, Kevin is a carpenter and could do the labour for free, along with some help from a few friends. We came up with a reno plan. We would add a second floor, new roof, new walls, possibly expanding outwards and adding on a deck in the front/back and a litle outter balcony off the master bed on the top floor. We'd have 3 bedrooms instead of 1, and with an added shed/garage and some basic landscaping (to hide the akward triangular shaped lot) we would be attracting potential holiday-home buyers (which already currently own 2/3 of the homes in the Invermere area). Tada!! A cute mountain cabin. HOWEVER... after getting the grand tour, we really didn't know whether to laugh again, or just cry. It was unbelievable! We all went out for coffee afterwards to discuss the possiblities, and unanimously decided that we should offer the guy $40,000 with the cabin - or - $50,000 if he would burn it down and just sell us the lot. Anyway, there's some pictures in the post above. My appologies for not getting a good overall shot of the place - the batteries died in my little digital. Rrg. I just have to add my disgust at the sudden burst of greed here in the Eastern Kootenays. I realize we have rich neighbors living 3 hours away who are well able to afford a 2nd home for a million bucks, and I appreciate the boom it creates in our economy. If it wasn't for them Kevin wouldn't have as much work as he does, making as much as he does (not that it's an astronomical amount or anything). BUT, it is infuriating not being able to afford to live where you live. Gas, insurance and groceries alone are way above what they should be, not to even mention the possibility of purchasing a home. A lot which cost $10,000 5-10 years ago now costs a minimum of $110,000. There are people who take one look at their neighbor who happens to be selling for $800,000 and thinks, "hey! if he's selling for that much, why can't we sell for $900,000?" ... and on and on ... until you get guys like "buddy", who own a piece of crap shack on an akward sized lot in the middle of nowhere in an area which hasn't even boomed yet, asking flippin $94,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE HECK?! What is WRONG with people!? I can't seem to express my disgust enough. It almost makes me want to deliberately stay away from purchasing anything in this area, just to show my lack of support for the money hungry thieves trying to make more than they need to. Of course this is a rediculous idea b/c: 1) if we had the opportunity to buy something which is guaranteed to go up in value we totally would; and 2) if we don't purchase the small 2bed condo from Joe Blow for 250,000 someone else will. So what's the point. It's real tempting to say, "If you can't beat em, join em."

My Valentines gift from my wonderful husband :) :) :) This Valentines we had four friends over (and two more little ones), Devon & Ethan and Jen & Adam. We figured since our evenings weren't about to be romantic with 3 little ones anyway, we'd all get together and make the most of it:) It was dinner and a movie. A good time too! Happy Valentines Day!!! Atalie got all dressed up for Valentines. Her friend Zack was the special man. He was also looking quite spiffy, but we didn't get a picture in time before bed... shoot. Atalie and her new friend Gabriella Ann Koenig. Gabby was also dressed for the occassion:) She was born December 24th... maybe some day they'll be best of friends:)

Fettuccini & Mischief

Mmmm! Atalie has her first taste of fettuccini alfredo... ...it's a hit! She ate just over half this mound of pasta.

Little monkey! Tisk tisk. This is what I get for letting her entertain herself while I email a friend. Guess who had to put all the bags back? Yup.