TEN MINUS TWO ...: HOME .......

Wellllll, two blogs in one day - aren't you lucky ?!

No .... my last blog I guess left some confused, hec - I confuse myself even, so I wanted to share with you my home and some pictures of it and tell you of how we came about it.

First, We moved to Wisconsin in August of 2003 when my husband got transferred to Ft. McCoy with his unit.

We first rented a house on the other side of town, we quickly fell in love with that house and told the owners that we'd be interested in a rent to own kind of deal if they were. They said they were - however - at the end of 2004 the quickly changed thier minds and went weirdo on us - put the house up for sale and sold it to the first gal to look at it. We put money into it, we thought we were going to buy it - so that became a mess and they wouldn't even give us our security deposit back - they also gave us 10 days to get out - I had just given birth to Cameron. We had to quickly find somewhere to go - the house was sold. We found a duplex - small but it would do for a month or two - it was January 2005 and it stunk that we had to move in the cold. The landlord lady went pshycho on us and came to the new place nutty and crying at me - scaring the kids, I had to call the cops and she has since and even still stalks me around town here. We stayed in the duplex for 8 months actually until I had - had just about enough of being cramped up there and read an ad in the paper - called a number and it was about this house. This house was needing work, and the owners were looking for work to be done while taking money off of the rent. WELLLLLLLLLL now, as dumb as I must be - I told Adam about it and he was more apprehensive about it then I was - seeing as we were taken advantage of with the last house. (Adam was a contractor for a few years) I thought we should jump at the chance and it may work out this time. So we got into contact with the people and got the ball rolling. At first glance, I was like "Ewwww, THAT is the house" ? It was old and dilapidated a bit - an obvious let go of someones'. The house was in their family for years and after the owners dad had passed nothing was done to it any longer. The brick part -Originally built in the late 18oo's - early 19oo's and the additions (log cabin room and garage / master bed and bath) built at later times - it was kinda scit scatter, but we moved into this place . HOME. We all stayed in what is now our dining room on our mattresses while the rest of the house was gutted - all but one or two rooms - what a mess. We had huge dumpsters outside and messes everywhere. We worked our way about the house - in the cold - destroying all of the plaster and lathe that had to come down. We tore apart every last thing and did it all new from scratch. We told the owners that we definitly wanted to buy the place, but it would take time for us to get some things in order - our credit was bad and we'd had our identity stolen. They seemed OK with it at that time. However that too would soon change.

As we went on working, we poured love into the house we wanted, we put things where we'd like them to be - outlets, light fixtures - etc. Adam and Jordan did alot of the hard "men" work - like electrical and plumbing, drywall and sanding. I designed/ decorated it all and picked out all the kids things I wanted if we could have the house. Once Adam was done with all of the hard stuff the girls and I could help more - we did painting, caulking and cleaning ... all that other fun stuff.

Here are some pictures :

BRITTANY'S ROOM - BEFORE :

THIS IS BRITTANY'S ROOM (look at the after photo can you see that we left the lights where they were ?)

BRITTANY'S ROOM BEFORE ....

BRITTANY'S ROOM AFTER ...............

NOW - CAMERON'S ROOM :

BEFORE :

NOW AFTER:

Can you tell that where the in built shelf is was where that weord window used to be ?

Do you see where I tried to take similar shots so you can see the changes???? I hope I did that ok.

HANNAH'S ROOM :

BEFORE:

HANNAH'S ROOM - AFTER:

Now besides the bathroom, that is the kids part of the upstairs. It was super hard work that lasted over a year and a half to get done. My son Jordan's room is in the attick (sp?) part of the house, a whole other flight up, but that part was not gutted and re done as of yet.

Now after finally and totally deciding that we wanted the house we fought with the owners for months to set a price, he would say one thing and she would say another ... we told them that we DID not want to pay more than 130 for this house and that was supposed to be what it was set for - however at the last minute they declared that we pay 144.9 for the house or to get out and cease any thing to do with the house. We went to a lawyer and since we did not have that in writing there wasn't much they could do - except for the work done. It would substancially raise what we wanted to pay for the house, even monthly and we'd worked so hard on it - to fight it would only take time and money that we did NOt have. They knew that - a fact that still pisses us both off. Soooo, reluctanly we went ahead so we wouldn't lose all the work we'd put into it and get nothing out of it. It was very hard to get a loan, we'd worked for months trying to clear our credit the best we could so we'd get an ok rate. Since they raised thier price - it really screwed us and we almost didn't get the loan. SOMEHOW -with some really hard prayer we managed to get a loan - however it cost us a great deal and alot of money to come to an aggreement about the loan. The monthly payments meant we'd be paying almost two rents .... and that did not make us at all happy - however we were not going to just forget about it and went ahead. Sure, it may have been dumb, we knew that in time maybe it would be a mistake- but we did make the decision to go ahead. We closed on the house September 14th, 2006. Now taxes have gone up - sending our payments into four digits .... and about giving us a heart attack. NOW we in NO WAY can afford the payments and have not made them for a while now. Then a few months ago we found out that the title company did not do thier job and has fudged up all paper work that has to do with the three acres that we are supposed to own. More than half of which, the neighbors say that they own and we cannot have unless we pay them for it. Again- have we been taken ? Ugh ..... It still is to go to court, and for months now we've heard nothing. In our township however you have to own atleast 2.5 acres to legally have ownership of your land. Well we thought that we did -with the 3 acres, but since the owners that were here are all family with the neighbors who are his sister and family, we are wondering if it all isn't some other money getting scheme of thiers. Somehow they have tried to bilk us out of every penny they can get. Now they too are complaining that we have to pay for their taxes while living here because of some WI law. I am so tired of it all and of people here.

Anyway - it is possible that we lose this house, duh - we haven't paid the payments and because of our credit are in no way eligible for refinance of any kind what so ever. I just know it. (our credit score is roughly about 300 right now -and also in doing so will have people rip us off for thousands again) Suing the title company IS an option - however I have no idea how we'd afford it. I am not good with any legal knowledge and to tell you the truth it greatly confuses me. So - I have no idea what to do and what is going on. All I do know is that it has been months since we've heard anything - so I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am waiting and it drives me crazy.

We recently had an appraisal done and just so you know we bought the house for 144.9 and the appraisal was for 199.9 now. All the work we did is in equity. 50 thougsand dollars in equity. Am I just supposed to leave it ?

Ugh - here are some more pictures of the outside - now it isn't as beautiful as I would like it to be - or how I can see it pictured in my head - but it isn't done by my standards yet. We had alot more things we wanted to do - UGHHHHH - notice - like put in a front door !!! You can see they closed it and bricked it up - I don't know what they were thinking !!!! The only door is the garage (in the back of the house - which you can't see) - it is weird. But the other door here goes into the garage - you can see that part, and above it is our bedroom/bathroom. Anyway - here it is. Someday a driveway and separate garage would have been added (to the right) and we'd of re-done the whole front.... it would have been super nice with a beautiful entry way and new porch.