The Longest Two Years of My Life
In late 2021, Debbie and I spontaneously decided to take advantage of the housing market and sell our home in Jeff City to pursue the dream of building on her family's farm in the promised land of Lohman. Even in a hot market our house had a hard time selling mainly b/c of the backyard or lack thereof. We had a very good contract on a VA loan which was tanked by an appraiser notorious for under valuing the sale price, which is exactly what happened to us. The house went back on the market and sold a month later, appraising out at least $13,000 more than the last valuation, so go figure.
My family moved in with my mother-in-law for what we hoped to be a year or less and man we were wrong. We got a floor plan drawn up and were floored by the quote from a contractor. If anyone shopped lumber during covid you know what I mean. We waited eight weeks to get a second bid which was exactly the same price per sq foot. Debbie and I went back to the drawing board getting a smaller floor plan and waiting for lumber to come down, which it eventually did. We chose the first contractor who had a never-ending remodel and kept pushing our house back. In August 2022 we finally broke ground with the time frame given being about nine months. When Christmas rolled around without our foundation floor poured, I started to get very worried.
I have never seen a project go so slow. I saw entire subdivisions go up faster than my modest semi-custom home. I love my mother-in-law, but her house is not where we wanted to be living this long. Then about halfway through, my mother decided to take us up on our offer and move in. It was back to drafting and building a fully accommodated basement apartment for her. My general contractor did a lot of work himself instead of subbing everything out. We had tremendous luck with all the subcontractors except for the cabinet maker who I picked myself. The cabinets are truly amazing but we're five months late.
My mother had a contract on her house, and I was afraid we weren't going to finish in time for her to move in. Low and behold at the last minute there were about five subs and the general contractor at the house getting everything ready. My mom actually moved in before us.
We've been at the new home for one year and I'm still doing a few things myself, but most everything is finished. It took way way way to long, but the house turned out very nice. I really enjoy having my elderly mother close to me, and country life is treating all of us pretty good. Now I'll answer the only questions CDC members care about.....see reply post below
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crazy that it took so long to get your house done. congrats that it is.
but that last pic of the pool table reminded me of how I made it thru college. Yes I was that skinny, long haired dude with a goatee who everyone at SEMO wanted to play for money but I never asked anyone too. Won way more than I lost and along with playing poker with the same group of losers all of whom had "tells" that were obvious and steady checks from their parents. Always had a couple of frat bros who like to mix it up to handle things when tempers flared.
Used to always start off breaking with "Do you want to play another after I run the table? Talk about arrogant! But I did it often enough to have a rep.
Then I got a sales job where I made a lot of money at and man Life was Good! Best 7 years of my life!
Glad things worked out very well for you in your country estate.
