Welcome to Ham Home

The following is non essential reading, but in future posts I may make reference to something and instead of giving the backstory I will link to this post.

    My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I purchased a home purchased a home in the winter of 2018. We had been wanting to buy a home and as the housing prices in our area were going up, we knew we had a limited amount of time. We started to look during the summer of 2018, and it was maybe a bit premature. After a week or two, we fell in love with a split level in a secluded neighborhood on the border of a rural fruit farm... Pretty perfect. The one problem was that we weren't quite ready to purchase a home. It ended up being a moot point as it was quickly marked as a sale pending. We gave up on that dream home and kept looking, but always referenced it when talking about other homes we would see online.

    As winter approached, we had found a house or two that we thought were worth seeing. None of them came close to that house near the fruit farm. But, no use dwelling on the past. We found a realtor to show us some houses, but just before we were about to start having looks at houses in person, we found a house for sale. It was a split level in a secluded neighborhood on the border of a rural fruit farm. Our dream home that we had Zillow-creeped dozens of times was BACK ON THE MARKET!!! We rearranged to go see this house immediately. All other possibilities driven from our mind. My wife has told me that she hoped she didn't like it. She wanted to be more open minded when looking for a house, and if it didn't look as good in person as it did in the photos and our imagination, then it'd make the process a more objective one...

    As soon as we walked in to the home, we were sunk. It wasn't as good as we had imagined. It was so much better. It had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a wood stove on the lower level, plenty of space for the kids, and giant backyard... but more on that in a moment. Sure, there was work to do. The hardwood needed some help, and the carpeting needed to be replaced, but when all was said and done, this house was everything we had envisioned. It was a perfect home for us and a definite upgrade from the townhome we were renting currently. 

    So why was the home on the market? What had happened to force the buyers to back out? Well, it turned out that the septic system had to be replaced before it could be sold. In the time that they were addressing that issue, the potential buyers had found another home. It was very lucky for us, because now we had the opportunity to make it ours. Do you remember like a minute ago, or an hour ago... I'm not here to shame slow readers,  when I said there was a "giant backyard... but more on that in a moment"... Well, that moment has arrived. We walked out to the backyard, and to our surprise we were not met with the flat grassy tree bordered backyard that the listing had shown. Instead, we saw a landscape that could have pulled out of Lawrence of Arabia. It was just sand. Hilly sand. Which, what did I expect? The seller just had a septic system installed. There wasn't much for it. But man, it was a stark difference from the images we had seen. There was also a section that just retained water. Not like a three foot circle or anything... It was massive. It ran about 40 feet across the yard.  

    After that, we looked at another home that while it was nice, just didn't quite do the same thing for us. It was a tri-level, and it was nice. But there were train tracks running nearby, and there was definitely water damage in the lower level, and just over all wasn't as good as the house we had just looked at.

    This gave us quite a lot to think over. Did we want to take on this home that needed so much work in the yard? Would we be able to get it into shape? My wife and I aren't exceptionally adept at gardening or landscaping, so are we biting off more than we can chew? Well, whether we came to a consensus or not, I can't recall, but I know that we both loved the house. Even if the yard was trashed, we would slowly get it into shape. We closed on the house, started packing up our townhouse, and prepared to move into the home we had fallen in love with when we were first starting to look at homes. It felt like everything was falling into place. 

We moved in in the middle of January 2019 and eventually named our house "Ham Home". Overall have loved every second of living here. It is all we wanted from a house, and we have spent the past two years slowly upgrading and working on it. We have messed things up, and learned a lot about home ownership, and what I can say above all else is the most important piece of advice for a homeowner is, don't put off a small job. They only get bigger. Now, I am definitely a pot calling the kettle black here. I will put things off and I always regret it. Sometimes it means I lose a whole day catching up instead of a few hours a week. Sometimes it means I have to pay for some repair that I ignored. 

The point is, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and take beer breaks... Always take beer breaks.