Our National Folk Farmhouse - all moved in!

It's all done! 

We are moved in.

We got the internet hooked up yesterday so now I can do a blog post.

I didn't want to say a lot about our new house until we were sure every contract was done, every I was dotted, every T was crossed, and every penny was paid.

In February, we were pondering the idea of moving back to Oconto now that Steve is retired. Closer to all of the grandkids and thinking about moving into a single story home for our elderly years.

As much as we loved our home in Chilton, it was a very good time to put it on the market. It was now worth double of what we paid for it, due to, of course, all of the updates that we did over the six and a half years that we lived there.

I had randomly posted on the Oconto Buy Sell Facebook Marketplace page a post asking if anybody knew of any unique interesting homes that would be coming on the market, that had room to park a motorhome in the yard.

This sweet realtor, Amy Badendick, wrote back that she knew of a home that would be coming up very soon, and yes, they had a motorhome parking pad. She shot me off a private message with more details:

Hi, I am an agent in Oconto also. I have a seller wanting to sell soon, not listed yet. The home is 2 bedroom 1 bath 1280sq.ft. 75+yrs old with original wood floors. On 2 1/2 acres in the city. Not sure if this is the right size for you. But if you’re truly interested I can talk to the seller and see if he is ready to put it up for sale.

She said the people would be coming back in about a week. They were down in Georgia right then purchasing another home. She contacted me when they got back and said they were ready to list the home. She asked if we would like to come along on the listing appointment where she was going to also be photographing the house. She checked with the sellers ahead of time and asked if that was okay. So we were the first ones in the door!! We were able to look around the house, meet the sellers, and ask a zillion questions.

We fell in love with it right off the bat, and wrote an offer right away before anybody else could get it. They accepted. Wheeeheeee!!!

Then we drove back to Chilton and got ahold of Keith Krepline to list our home as soon as possible. I wrote about that in this blog post:

Moving? Moving? Moving?

It was a nail biter for a few weeks. Our buyers were having a few issues with their financing. But with the coordinated efforts of our realtor, their realtor, another appraiser and another bank, it all went through on time as planned!

We packed and moved everything up into 2 rented storage units in Oconto and the last load overflowed into our daughter Erin and Waylen's garage! Everything was finished with the last slapdash lick and polish on Thursday while we were living in the yard in the motorhome.

Thursday morning we pre-signed the closing papers. I walked around the house one last time and shot this video:

Yes, I cried 

as we went out the door

 for the last time. 

Friday morning the buyers signed their papers and paid the money!!!

From there, by Friday afternoon the proceeds were electronically wired to the title company here in Oconto. We were waiting with anticipation until the money was safe and sound up here. Then all we had to do was sign a few little papers and that was it. Done. It was ours lock, stock and barrel!!!

I made this video before we moved anything in:

Friday night, daughter Erin and hubby Waylen and the kids brought over take out chicken dinner so we didn't even have to cook. We didn't have any furniture in yet, so we picnic'd on the rug on the floor.

Clayton explored the woodbox door by the fireplace

and Claire discovered the late afternoon rainbows 

from the leaded glass window of the livingroom! 

We were able to get a bed set up and all the rest of the things out of their garage.  It felt sooooo good....

The dogs thought so too,

and settled right in

Saturday morning, some of the family came over to help us move. Even our nephew and niece in law and son Matt were on moving duty.  We had a pickup truck, a big Envoy, and our little Tracker and trailer.

Load after load, they worked their butts off to empty out one of our storage units. It was the one with all of the big heavy furniture. I babysat little Claire in between loads at the house, and help direct what went where as they carried things in.

All of the furniture was met at the door with little felt pads to go underneath everything to protect the newly refinished hardwood floors.

I whipped up a quick lunch buffet for everyone and they took a break out on the front porch... While they already set up the furniture.

It seemed like in no time at all they had everything out of that storage unit. Little Matt even swept it clean so we could turn in the keys.

Later, daughter Heather came over with her kids, as hubby Jesse is nursing a broken knee and wasn't able to come and help. Each grandkid family took turns unpacking a box of my blown glass paperweights. I have one more box waiting for Dan and Heather's family to come and unpack.

This is what I was waiting for! These paperweights used to line the window sill in the front porch down in Chilton. Now they are going to line the window sill in the breakfast nook area of our new kitchen.  Letting the grandkids unpack them is special. I let them play with the paperweights, and even the little grandkids are thrilled to handle "real glass".

The other storage unit still has a lot of boxes and totes and a lot of my fiber things. Many of our lawn and garden tools and garage items are also in the second unit. Hoping some of the kids will come and give us a hand.

Now I will tell you a bit about the house!

The realtor said it's called a "national folk farm house".  One portion of it is from the early 1900's. The other portion says 1960 on the records. But by looking close we think this second portion may have been moved here in 1960 but is still a much older home. The foundation underneath could be 1960 as well as the long steel beams underneath it. So it could very well have been moved here. We will go to the court house someday and find out more.

It is located within the city limits, on the north end of town on two and a half acres! The back end of the property backs up to a Wisconsin Land Trust nature preserve. That means we will never have neighbors back there!

Beyond that is a department of natural resources designated nature preserve

 and beyond that are the waters of the Bay of Green Bay 

that flow into Lake Michigan

The home is 1280 square feet. There is an attached single stall garage and mudroom for an additional 400 square feet. This attached portion will become my new studio, as well as a sun room looking out over the back of the property. Just you wait until you see what we have planned for this section of the house!!!

The front porch extends completely across the front of the house, 45 feet, and is absolutely lovely. Soon it is planned to have a porch swing and a couple white rocking chairs.

 It's on a quiet road heading out of town, 

with a 25 mile per hour speed limit. 

A multi-layered parking pad by the garage was made 

to withstand the weight of the old owners' motorhome,

and now ours as well.

The brand new garage is two stalls wide by two stalls deep, and has an extra garage door off the back to drive right through.  Steve has it all planned out what goes where once we get all of our boxes out of it!

Standing back by the border to the Nature Preserve,

it's 660 feet deep lot totalling 2.5 acres.

Whew!  

Steve bought a big riding lawnmower from the sellers.

The previous owners took care of a lot of the expensive stuff they put into the home already. They put on a new roof, they added a new furnace, new central air conditioning, new water heater, updated electrical and plumbing. And of course built the new garage. They only lived here for a short time, and a medical condition has them moving back to Georgia to be by family.

They also moved a wall over to create a larger master bedroom and from the remaining space they were able to make a beautiful master bath with a clawfoot tub, stand-alone shower, and plenty of room.

The old bathroom was made into a first-floor laundry room. Steve has decided to add an extra toilet and sink to that room as his first project. That way we will have a bath and a half.

I was quite pleased with the kitchen. They left the remaining old cabinets in place that are solid and strong. They were painted with a beautiful rich brown mocha color and new stainless steel handles and pulls were added.

They made a center island from five pieces of new cabinetry and lined the sides with beadboard. In the center of the island they put a slide in fancy schmancy state-of-the-art kitchen stove. Everything is all digital and touchpad and the book to run it is an inch thick!!!

They also included a new beautiful stainless steel large two door refrigerator, new never used dishwasher, and a stainless steel vent hood over the island.

All of the hardwood floors are the narrow hard maple common to the area from the Holtwood lumber mill that operated here in Oconto in the late 1800s early 1900s. That is why we think the newer portion of the house really is as old because all of the flooring matches and it does not appear to have been added later. you can see the seam between the one portion and the other, but all of the flooring matches up in style, tone and color.

There's a massive fireplace in the living room that is wood burning. We are going to change it over to a natural gas fireplace in the future.

The dining room is large enough to have our table spread out with the leaves and all eight chairs around it. There's room for my tall hutch, and the buffet will go on the longest wall once Steve changes the doorway entrance for the laundry room.

That is one of his first projects he has on his "honey do" list. He makes his own "honey do" list. I don't.  He will be relocating the door to enter from the kitchen instead of the dining area for the half bath and laundry room. After he closes up that wall we will put the long buffet into place and hang up our big silver mirror that was at our other home in Chilton.

That is about the only changes we are going to make within the home.

On the outside, there is original wood siding that we are going to power wash and see if a coat of paint is needed once it is clean. The north side has some damaged areas that we might repair or start replacing with "Smart Siding". We can eventually work our way around the house replacing each side as the budget allows.

The sellers had already purchased the shutters to dress up the home and I am going to see about painting them with a special polyurethane paint for plastic. They had chosen black shutters but I am thinking to go with a deep rich red / burgundy color for accent.

One of my first projects is to also paint that red burgundy color on the lower lattice all the way around the porch before the plants start growing.

There are perennial beds completely encircling the house full of hostas, peonies, lilies, iris Etc.  It will be very exciting to see what pops up!

We transplanted a couple clumps of hydrangea, a white lilac, and a clump of black raspberries that we dug up from Chilton. Erin, Waylen and the kids gave us a granny smith apple tree to plant. We have to get that in soon but we want to decide on the perfect spot. It needs to be protected with fencing from the deer for the first few years.

The big backyard facing out over towards the nature preserve is full of wildlife. The deer come in as well as ducks, turkeys, geese and who knows what else. The neighbors said there are coyotes as well as a big old owl up in the tall pine tree. They can hear the wolves at night so that is another reason to have fenced in protection for Finney and Binney when we let them out in the potty yard.

We put up this temporary fencing for now which are 4 ft High panels that we have connected around in a loop coming off the back side of the house and garage. We can just open the door right now to let them out and back in again. We will put up a more permanent fence later after we get a couple other projects done first.

As for the attached garage, we will remove the single garage door and replace that with windows. Across the back we will replace the smaller windows with four large 5ft by 5ft windows. So that will be twenty feet of window space across the back of garage/mudroom addition. Steve will insulate the floor and walls and ceiling. Then we plan to cover the walls and ceiling with beadboard type thick wood called carsiding. We will paint it all beautiful clean white, like our old front porch in Chilton. Then we are thinking we will do the snap together vinyl plank waterproof flooring in a gray weathered barn board color.  Everything in red is what we will be changing"

This room will become my studio for my long arm quilting machine, my weaving looms, my spinning wheel, and my sock knitting machine. The portion near the kitchen will contain our white rattan porch furniture and look out of the big windows across the backyard to our million dollar view. We will run heat ducts out from the basement into the room to make it a four season room. Maybe even add a gas fireplace to one wall. It's in the planning stages.

So far, we did pick up four beautiful heavy duty exterior Andersen french doors. They were brand new still in the boxes on a bargain of a bargain of a bargain on Facebook Marketplace. We will use one on each side of the studio sunroom as entry / exit doors. One leading to the garage and one leading out to the back patio and doggy potty yard.

The last two French doors Steve will adapt to go between the kitchen and down into that space. It's about five steps down. So we are going to eliminate the pantry in the kitchen as well as the existing door and put in the double French doors instead.

So far, besides moving in all of our furniture, Steve has attacked a couple projects right off the bat.

He added whole house water filters, adjusted the water heater temperature, and we added a Wi-Fi thermostat.

He leveled the refrigerator correctly and hooked up the ice maker on the fridge. It had never been hooked up before and is brand new.

He put up a different light fixture over the kitchen breakfast area as well as over the kitchen sink. These are stained glass that match our lamps and other fixtures were are planning to install.

Steve is happy to have new projects, and I am happy to get a new studio and sunroom!!!  He just came in the house from his garage. He was arranging boxes and finding more for me to unpack. He looks SO HAPPY! and smiling... and a bounce in his step.  This is a good move for him as well.

Stay tuned for all of the new projects we are going to do on our National Folk Farmhouse!!!

The Waiting Game is OVER!!

I have not wanted to write any posts until we knew things for sure. We were waiting for the final mortgage commitment from our buyers for our house from their bank. It's been touch and go for a while, but after 45 days we now have our answer!

Yes, our buyers' loan went through and they are able to buy our house successfully next Friday. As soon as we get the money in our hot little hands, we are buying the house up in Oconto that we have chosen. (actually they wire it for us)


In the meantime we've been keeping ourselves busy packing and more packing and more packing....

We rented two large storage units closer to Oconto to where we are moving.  It made sense to move a bit at a time, rather than all at once. Us old folks get tired out fast, and trying to cram it all into one big moving day is not to our liking.

For the largest load of all the heavy boxes and many small boxes and delicate items, we decided to rent a U-Haul truck. For one day use plus mileage, it came to about $160 but it sure was worth it to get all of this little stuff up there in one load!!

Look how much space we have to fill with our stuff!!!

This stuff all fit in, plus all of my quilting frame pieces and supplies.  We sure had a lot of totes and boxes, and most of it was my fiber stuff!  ack!!!!

We loaded and loaded and loaded boxes and once they were all in....  then Steve added any of the garage stuff that was loose and awkward like saw horses, lawn mower and garden equipment.

That made it up there safe and sound... and we unloaded during a sleety icy storm.  Ick!   But we got it done in a few hours and we returned the truck 5 minutes before the deadline at the local Uhaul place. Whew!

Since then, we have been hauling a load at a time on our little trailer behind our tiny Geo Tracker. It cannot take a lot of weight so we've been selecting each load and what to put on the trailer each time.

We have done nine smaller loads, each time carefully strapping everything down and binding it up for the journey of seventy miles up to the storage units.

ONE

TWO

THREE

 FOUR

 FIVE

 SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT 

 NINE

(I was so busy I didn't get a pic while this last load was on the trailer, 

but it's all crammed in tight now to the storage unit) 

My 4 harness and 8 harness delicate table looms 

each rode on a separate trip in the safety of rear of the Tracker.

In all of the nine trips, we only had one mishap. It was trip number 4. I had wrapped our big couch cushions and matching pillows in heavy duty plastic bags. Although the weather was nice I thought it would just protect them from anything during the journey. Steve strapped all four plastic bags down securely on top of the other furniture as we traveled.

About eight miles from home, we stopped at a intersection and pulled to the side in a small parking lot to check the load each time. Steve got back into the Tracker, after checking the load, and said one strap was loose. Then he asked me: "Didn't we have four bags of cushions and pillows?" He only saw three bags and a loose strap???

 RUT ROH!!!

Time to backtrack!!!

We only had to go back 6 miles before we found our couch cushion and matching pillow lying perfectly nice and dry in the ditch on dried grasses. The plastic bag was nowhere to be seen. Obviously the cushion must have squirted out from under the strap with the aid of a plastic covering that made it slippery.

We were so lucky that it didn't land in a snowy or muddy or swampy area .... of which the ditches were really bad within a mile or so of this section of road.

We rearranged things and decided to cram the cushions inside of the Tracker, and let the dogs sit on top of them instead. As you can tell by this picture, they were not too happy about it.

As of this weekend, we have everything packed and organized in both storage units, of which both are filled to the max.

The only thing left in the house is our bed, our two chairs, and the TV and our laptops.  We set our lawn chairs out in the front porch for the last few weeks.

Everything feels so empty.

Lonely. 

We also have a few house plants and three long window boxes full of my precious coleus that I winter over every year. These will be the last things to leave the house because the temperature is too cold outside for them yet.

We are staying inside the house for now, even though we do have the comforts of the motorhome right outside in the back yard.

Because in the house we have access to unlimited supply of water and shower and washer / dryer facilities, as well as my soaking bathtub. We also have the internet within the house, but the signal does not reach to the motorhome. We still have cooking utensils and dishes in the house as well as our food for cooking.

We are still having some freezing nights here so we are not ready to dewinterize the motor home yet so we don't have any running water with in the motorhome. That would mean we would have to go back and forth through the yard to get into the house to use the facilities. Middle of the night potty trips through the yard in my jammies does not appeal to me.

But for the last few days of home occupancy, we will move into the comfort of the motorhome and have our internet in the house disconnected.   Then we can give the house a last final slap dash lick and polish for the new owners!

Steve said for the last few nights we can run a small heater in the lower storage bays of the motorhome if we do decide to dewinterize it.

For now, we are comfortable in the nearly empty house, and living the minimalist lifestyle.

Every day we have been 

telling the dogs this story. 

They listen so intently 

and they wonder what's going on.

As for the house we are buying in Oconto, I don't want to jinx anything by talking too much about it.

It will be full of fun projects for us to work on, but all the main expensive stuff has already been updated: new roof, new furnace, new water heater, new air conditioning, new kitchen appliances, and all newly refinished hardwood floors throughout the whole home. But best of all, there is a brand new huge garage for Steve. Two stalls wide by two stalls deep, plus an RV parking pad already in place for our motorhome.

I am not saying it's better than we have now, nor worse, just different and full of great possibilities and adds to the enjoyment of being nearer to ALL of our grandchildren.  Even the two in Green Bay will be closer, because it's a few miles shorter, and a much faster route to get there than from where we live now.  So ALL of the children will benefit by having us closer.  As well as Steve and I will be benefiting from having them close to help US as we age. (and watch over our house while we travel in the motorhome).

Packing - Packing - Packing!

All is full steam ahead on both the sale of our home and the purchase of the next one.

Yes, after only three days on the market, we got a full price good solid offer from pre-qualified people with an accepted offer on their own home.

Contractual contingencies almost all satisfied, and both deals are moving forward to successful closings next month (fingers crossed).  If there is a gap between one house selling and not closing on the other one on the same day, we have the motorhome to live in during the transition.

We started packing all of the things we are not currently using. Ohhhhhh boy where did all this stuff come from?  The dogs are getting quite curious as to why I keep putting stuff in boxes, labeling them, and Steve carries them out to stack in the garage.

As long as I don't pack their doggie toys, dishes, or beds,

they are content. 

They were concerned by the "Chewy" box on top of that pile.

 I had to show them it contained extra bathroom supplies.

We are also using plastic totes for the bottom layer, and stacking the cardboard ones on top of those.  That way if there is some snow melt run off into the garage, we will be safe.

We bought about 30 boxes at Walmart and Home Depot of a good sturdy quality. Then also we got on a list at our local Walmart who saves us a pallet of 30 to 40 boxes at a time. How nice is that?

I am trying to stay on track and just pack up one room at a time.

Starting with my sewing room. Oh boy.

Four sewing machines, many many many boxes of fabric and tools and supplies as well as the actual big quilting frame, cutting table, sewing table, bookshelf etc.

Some things that we don't mind freezing are being carried in boxes out to the garage. From there we are going to keep stacking them up and haul a load at a time up to a rented storage unit in Oconto. Steve's cute little trailer behind the Tracker works for light loads.  But we will rent a big enclosed Uhaul truck a few times to get larger batches moved.  The kids will help at the end with the big furniture.

It was kinda funny driving down the highway 

with this grinning halloween pumpkin 

peeking out on one side,

and two Snowmen on the other, 

with a small Christmas tree in the middle! 

Lawn chairs and seasonal things are now stowed away...

Don't think we are using them during the next 50 days with all the snow we have! 

(and more coming this weekend!) 

We did drive up the other night to meet again with the sellers of the property we are buying. They are doing a long-distance move to Georgia, and didn't want to take both of their lawn mowers. They sold one to us and we moved it out of their way over to our storage unit.  They are so busy busy busy packing as well because they are taking multiple trips to get all of their items down to Georgia.

In the meantime, the buyers of our home would like to come back on Sunday with their children. The children would like to pick out their bedrooms and help them visualize their upcoming transition to the new home. I think that helps a lot with moving anxiety because the children were not here when the parents viewed the home. Actually, when the parents came to look at the home, they were here for only half an hour and immediately went and wrote an offer asking for a very quick acceptance time. They did not want to lose it to anybody else. Even though there were two more showings scheduled for that evening and the next day, the full price offer they tendered asked for a response by noon. Smart people. We felt we should just take it and be happy rather than hold out for something else. You know, the bird in the hand and the two in the bush type thing. Full price offer was just fine with us.

As for the house we are buying, I don't want to jinx anything by talking too much about it.

It will be full of fun projects for us to work on, but all the main expensive stuff is already been updated: new roof, new furnace, new water heater, new air conditioning, new kitchen appliances, and all newly refinished hardwood floors. But best of all, there is a brand new huge garage for Steve. Two stalls wide by two stalls deep, plus an RV parking pad already in place for our motorhome.

I am not saying it's better than we have now, nor worse, just different and full of great possibilities and added to the enjoyment of being nearer to ALL of our grandchildren.  Even the two in Green Bay will be closer, because it's a few miles shorter, and a much faster route to get there than from where we live now.  So ALL of the children will benefit by having us closer.  As well as Steve and I will be benefiting from having them close to help US as we age. (and watch over our house while we travel in the motorhome).

Sooooooo it's back to packing and I will let you know more details as we go along....

On The Market! (on edit - ACCEPTED OFFER!)

UPDATE--- WE JUST ACCEPTED AN OFFER

Our home is officially listed on the market this week. We had one showing the other day, another showing today, and another showing scheduled for Monday.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed that someone will find this home, love it, and allow us to move on to the next phase in our plans.

Here is the link:

227 North Madison Street, Chilton, Wisconsin

.