So now we see the history of the home

It took 8 days and 6 guys to remove the home.  one guys spent the 8 days just pulling nails from the boards.  The roof had 4 layers and took the most time.  Once the roof was off the interior came down and then the walls.  This was the event of the year for the neighbors.  We now know them all and some of them had lots to offer in what they would have done.  The home is now a large swimming pool with yellow tape indicating not safe to swim.  We are finding that most people just can not help but to walk to the edge of the foundation and look over.

Now that the house is gone we have spent the last few weeks cleaning up the yard and out buildings to get it ready for the builders.  We have recycled almost a ton of metal from the property it seems Mr Muhlhouser really like to use piping around his yard and garden.

So now we wait and hope that we start after the holiday,

First things first

Three very large and old pines came down.  They did it in three days and left the lot so clean that you would not have known trees had been there.  Some of the neighbors were  not happy with the change but they are happy apartments are not going up.

680 North September 2010

So here is the house we bought.  608 sg ft, large yard, garage, old chicken coop and an out building that the son lived in with no running water.

Should we do it

Two summers ago our elderly neighbor Mr. William Muhlhouser passed away, his son who lived with his father was soon to follow, he left and is some where down south trying to be a musician at the age of 55. There is a daughter who lives 3 hours from Missoula, she had tried for a year to maintain the estate but was finding it hard, this is where Steve and I enter the story. Neighbors mentioned to us that the daughter was going to place the home up for sale and was really looking to get it sold as soon as possible. We did not have much interest in being land lords but we did like to property (3.5 lots our is 2 lots) and said we would think about it. We did think about it, made an offer and it was turned down. We were some what relieved seeing we really were not in need of moving or looking to build. The daughter then came back a few weeks later and told us she would take our offer. We thought about it and we said yes.

We closed on the home in February and have been getting ready to start the building. The process to this point has been mixed. The design stage went well, other than the home is bigger than we wanted or needed, but they keep telling us it was all about resale. So we have almost all the things we had hoped for with lots of yard left for a large garden and chickens.

We had to remove some trees and while designing the home we found out that the existing home was not useable due to the fact that the home was a log structure that had been stuccoed over. This resulted in the home being deconstructed and recycled by a local company that resells all that can be used (80% of home resold before project was even done).

We now have a lot with fewer trees and just a basement ( that can not be used). We are finally getting the banking done so we have a start date of 7/5/11. Builder is telling us 4 mths so we will be in by Thanksgiving.

I will be adding photos of what we have done so far and will keep you up dated as we go along. Steve and I are very excited for the project to start and to share the events with you. If anyone has advice we would love to have it.