We did it.

It has been a while folks, but with good reason, as you will see.

The old adventures have slowed as of late and most of that is in preparation for a new brand of adventure.

WE bought a wreck. 

Seriously, what were we thinking?  The place is a total insurance fire waiting to happen. Take a look.

Not that bad, really. What are you talking about a wreck?

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

There are three semi-permanent structures on the land. One is a 1973 Peerless single-wide mobile home. One is a steel clad building where the previous tenant ran a commercial auto and truck garage. The last one is a 1994 Fleetwood double-wide. That one will be our home and the focus of most of our initial attention. And it will need it... All of it.

Wait, that can't be good. Are those mushrooms growing out of the wall?

Well, at least this doesn't look important. It's at the bottom of the wall, that means it is probably extra.

Yeah.


So, the place was foreclosed for two or three years and essentially vacant. The owner lived in a run-down RV hidden on the back of the property until he got too sick to take care of himself. Sad, right. The roof leaked and rotted out a large portion of the back corner of the house. It will need lots of repair.

OK then, how about the inside? 

Well that doesn't look too bad!  Is that laminate flooring?

Yes it is.  Let's take a closer look.

Years of vacancy have taken their toll. Even the Empire questions our sanity.

Yeah, all that's gotta come out.

And the list goes on.

There is:

A leaky bathtub

Mold and mildew

AVERT YOUR EYES!  What is THAT!?!?

Yeah.

So, all my free time is accounted for in the foreseeable future.

The kids are going to learn some skills. 

We moved onto the land.  The power wasn't on, the well won't work.  We were good in the RV for the first few days, but the water ran out, the batteries died and we found ourselves out here in the boonies pretty much totally out of the modern comforts of life.

And we're happy. 

What, you thought we would do it the easy way?  No, the rewards of the hard way are better.

It's 5.9 acres 25 minutes from downtown Olympia. We got into if for a steal because of our legendary realtor (She gets her own blog entry later.  For real, she is amazing.)

It has a garage. 

Comes with abandond cars!

Plenty of room for mayhem.

Children not included.  Well, kinda.

I have plans for this space.

It has...

Fruit trees.  Lots of fruit trees.

And

The single-wide. A blog post of its own someday. 

And

Fields of wild flowers.

And every once in a while...

It does this.

Oh yeah...and we got in under six figures.  It means a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it.  The value will be in the work as much as the final product.

What more could you ask for?