We were driving home from a 3-hour roundtrip (again) to attend one of the grandkid's functions up in Oconto. Evidently, Steve had been tossing around an idea with our son-in-law Waylen. Steve brought it up to me as we were driving home in the car...
The statement was: "Now that I've retired, there's nothing really keeping us in Chilton"!!!!
The more we discussed the idea, it was kind of making sense. Two of our grandchildren live in Green Bay which is 35 miles away, and the other five grandchildren live up in Oconto which is 70 miles away. If we moved back up into that area, we would be closer for all of them, as well as living closer during our old age years to get some help if we need it?
We did live in Oconto for 15 years, and sold our log home out on the river in 2012. Steve was going to retire but instead took a job transfer to High Cliff State Park. That is why we bought a house in Chilton, to be near the park.
Although I sold our last two houses myself, because in my previous life in Green Bay I had been a realtor/broker. This time around we decided to let Keith do all the paperwork, the pre-screening, and all the crazy details that need to be done nowadays. I have not held an active license since 1998 and I am sure things have changed with the real estate legalities over the last 20 years. So Keith is our man, he's very prominent in our area and I've never heard a bad word about him. His houses sell well, and many times near or above asking price. We had a pretty good idea, of course, of what our home is worth and it will be listed within the next week or so.
We looked at a few homes up in the Oconto area already, but nothing really that fits our needs one hundred percent. There's something we like about one, or something we like about another, but nothing that is meeting all of our little boxes on our checklist.
The best part is that if this house sells before we find another one, everything can just go into a storage unit up in Oconto and we will live in our motorhome. Actually right in the middle of Oconto is a wonderful City Park called Holtwood that has daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal rates. None of our kids' yards are big enough for us to park in, so the campground will suit us just fine if it comes to that.
Even if we find a very interesting "Fixer-Upper", we can live in the motorhome right in the yard of the new house and do the work inside. Oconto does allow RVs to park in the yard as long as it is on a specific parking pad and not sticking out beyond the house. No problem because that's one of our top criterias in looking for a house is that it needs to have a yard big enough to hold our motorhome. We do not ever want to store it off site. We can make a parking pad like we have right now.
Our second criteria is that home has to have some original charm and character and real woodwork like the one we have now. No painted up stuff. Almost every home in Oconto has beautiful hardwood floors because it was the historic location of the Holt hardwood company that made beautiful floors. Almost everybody has the same floors in every house we have looked at.
We have started doing our little things on our punch list here around this house to get it ready for the market. Everything's pretty much done, other than we wanted to swap out some of the light fixtures.
There are two fixtures that I found at Goodwill, of all places, for only $4.99 each. We added two stained glass light shades that were, believe it or not, from Menards at only $7.99 each. (they shipped the wrong ones to me at the cheap price and I called them to try to correct it and they didn't care. They just said they would charge me a restocking fee if I tried to return them. So I kept them!) So these shades plus the fixtures total $12 each. The fixtures really appeal to me. I know I can never find them again anywhere else to buy them, so we are taking them with us!
This morning Steve replaced the one in our foyer with the beautiful crystal light fixture we had originally bought for that foyer in 2012.
I packed up all of these special fixtures and shades, including the hobnail shades that our son just fixed for us. They can go onto any wall sconces in a future home, and I don't want to leave them behind. So with each thing we are removing, we are replacing it with something else that is pretty. Probably even more expensive. But we are taking the things that speak to our heart.
I am packing up all of these stained glass shades between balls of my woolen roving for spinning. The softest sheep wool ever and it makes perfect padding around the light fixtures and stained glass shades!
and I did a clean-up the woodwork of old paint splatters from previous painters too.
Steve will work his part-time job here in Chilton driving for the ADRC handicap bus until it's time to move. We don't know if it will be one month, two months, three months, whatever?? But in the meantime he will still keep up his part time job.
Anyone want to buy
a pretty
Craftsman style house
in Chilton?
The two plus stall garage has a workshop area that's partially insulated and ready to be walled off if so desired.
I know you've seen a lot of pictures on my front porch, here it is from both ends. And if someone offered me enough money for the house, I would even consider leaving them all of the porch furniture because it fits so well in here.
Entering into the house has a beautiful foyer with an elaborately paneled wooden staircase to the upper level. There is also a rear servant's staircase to the upper level as well. Turning into the living room there are original pocket doors that are in wonderful condition.
The living room has hardwood floors, leaded glass window, gas fireplace, and we are leaving the matching mirror over the mantle. I painstakingly stained it to match the mantle and make it appear to be all one unit.
The living room is bright and sunshiny facing to the east, and is separated from the dining area by these beautiful original columns.
The large formal dining room has a large bay window with more leaded glass to one side, and a gorgeous crystal chandelier. It also has hardwood floors. The original hutch from this room has been moved into the family room and could be put back into place on the back wall where our mirror is hanging.
The kitchen was a complete redo. These are beautiful old oak cabinets I restored that came from a butler's pantry from an old mansion that was being torn down. We also added the island with a dishwasher underneath. All of the appliances will also be included. Off the kitchen is a half bath, a first-floor laundry room, and the back staircase up to the second floor.
The family room, which used to be my loom room, is located off the dining room. Separated by sliding French doors that came out of an old church. this is the original hutch that belongs back in the dining room and will be included with the sale of the home. it will be up to the new buyer to decide if they want to leave it here or move it back to the dining room. We moved it out because we had a large hutch and buffet that both matched our dining set and needed to keep them together.
Let's go up to the second floor. But please forget about that beautiful light fixture hanging up in this photo below because it's now been replaced with the crystal one.
This third bedroom has been made into my sewing room and all three bedrooms have wood flooring, original woodwork, doors and crown moldings as well. Most older homes the upstairs wood is painted and plain. We adore the beautiful woodwork in this house and that's what we are looking for in another home.
We redid the bathroom and removed all evidence of the 1950s plastic glue on tiles as well as the turquoise bathtub and shower. We added the deep soaking tub and a separate stand-alone shower, and replaced the 1950's chrome and flickering fluorescent light medicine cabinet with something more original to the home. The hallway across from the bathroom has a huge linen closet with shelves and deep drawers for putting away the rest of your bathroom items.
The big deep backyard is perfect for dogs or children. The fencing that we put up was built from strong sturdy treated deck wood, not cheap fencing panels. The fencing connects the back door porch area and continues on around behind the garage to access the large backyard. We were pretty proud of this fence and we built it to last, thinking we were staying here forever.
With the two access doors off the garage, you could actually walk directly from the back door, through the garage, out into the backyard without ever having to leave the fenced-in area. Perfect for kids or dogs!
And of course,
Our RV parking pad
with a 50 amp hookup post
If anyone's looking to buy a wonderful home, contact Keith Krepline in the link above and he will take it from there!
Stay tuned for our next adventure....
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