Winlock, Here I Come!

It's official. We are going to buy that schoolhouse in Winlock, WA. Providing it passes the inspections, of course. The septic has already been pumped and inspected because the property had a previous sale fail due to lack of funds. That just leaves the house and the well. We have looked the house over and I can't see any issue that would cause it to fail. It seems to be structurally sound. It was built in the 30's, when there was still pride in craftsmanship. It was a schoolhouse, so it isn't fancy, but it is sturdily built. Because it has a full basement we are able to see the beams and they are huge.

This has been a stressful couple of weeks. We made our initial offer on the property back on Dec. 27th. We are used to negotiating with individuals when buying a home. We start low. Fannie Mae doesn't work that way. It is either a YES or a NO. They don't counter. After waiting a full 10 days our first offer was rejected. They were waiting to see if they got any other offers....and they did. We were then asked to make our last, best offer. This we did the very next day. That was this past Tuesday. Yesterday (Friday) we got word of their preliminary acceptance of that second offer. We are now waiting to receive the signed papers before we schedule the inspections. We are assured the papers are in transit.

Yesterday I was finally able to relax. That waiting process was 2 weeks of pure torture. Now we can finally breathe easy and begin planning in earnest. Today we will go look at some paint swatches. We are excited to begin this new chapter in our lives. It's going to be a labor of love. Here are some more photos of the property. I will post some interior photos once I am able to revisit the property, probably not until the inspection.

Another view of the front of the house. It currently has a horseshoe shaped driveway that goes around the back of the house and out the other side. We are planning to put a garage at the end of this half of the driveway, near that side (back) door. We'll be replacing that side deck and have the stairs go to the back instead of the front. I will be using the backdoor the most since it opens into the laundry room/mudroom. The 4 windows to the left are the living room. The first 2 windows to the right are the kitchen (you can see that some ding-a-ling put the fridge in front of the window) and the second 2 are the office/loom room.

This is the back of the building. We believe it is also the site of the septic drain field. We have yet to see the as-builts.  This area will probably be fenced in for Reggie. That window to the right is the master bedroom. We may add French doors onto a little deck. It would be nice to sit out there and watch the critters. The other 2 windows are for the bathrooms.

This is the left side of the house, showing the basement door. This area is directly across from the orchard. We plan on putting a covered patio/carport here. That would give us a covered work area for brewing, canning, etc...

This is the driveway down the left side of the building. It runs past the basement door, around the back of the house and out past the right side of the building. That is the orchard to the left. There is a little tarp building there. It is filled with old bales of straw. Not sure what type of animal(s) they kept there.

There are 2 good sized fenced areas on the left half of the property, next to Hemmenway Rd. This first field holds the orchard. There are maybe 9 fruit trees in here. I don't yet have an accurate count and I don't have any way of knowing what type of fruits they will bear. It will be a surprise. My chickens will hang out in this area. They can fertilize the trees for me.

The second field will be my goat/sheep pasture. I will cross fence it so I can rest half at a time. This photo shows half of it.

The second half of the goat pasture. There is a dog house in there. I do plan on getting a guard dog, so that house will come in handy.

This is a weird angle but it kind of shows the back area of the property. I will get a better photo. This one makes the back look small, which it isn't. There is plenty of room behind the house, and to the right of the goat pasture, for raised planting beds and a greenhouse.

That's all for now. I will update just as soon as I have something more to share.