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| Think of this as my blog's cover page.... |
It was suggested that I blog about my new adventures in home purchase & renovation as a (semi-) youngish woman starting another of life's chapters, as some might actually find it (semi-) interesting. I'm more or less doing it as a Before & After album. If a little entertainment or education should entail in-between, so be it. >:)
My name is Tracy... and today I am about to purchase my own .17/acre slice of the American Dream.
First some background on me and my deal: I'm 41, single, kid-free by choice, and decently artistically talented by chance. I'm the only daughter of an all-around fix-it & repair-it type guy. Dad has been flipping cars, boats, furniture, and entire houses since before anyone heard of the term. You name it, he can fix it, that type. ALWAYS working on something, my father. Growing up, I thought him the ultimate workaholic. If I wanted to spend time with him, I had to head out to the garage or down to the cellar to do so. Rather than toss a ball in the backyard to me, I'd play builder's apprentice to him, learning as we toiled on. In time, it dawned on me that he wasn't a workaholic (in spite of always having a mile-long To-Do List), but rather this was, and still is, his form of artistic outlet. True, maybe not so much as he changes out an old toilet, but you can see it in the end results of a home reno or a new piece of furniture from old salvaged wood.
By the time my future ex-husband asked me to move in to his house and marry him, my sleeves were already rolled up, ready to tear into his place. Before he knew what was happening I'd happily plunged in and was tearing out chunks of walls, completely revamping the kitchen, building a deck, expanding bedrooms, and on and on. Sadly, my marriage didn't work out... but at least the house sold quickly and for our asking price, even as the economy and housing market began its downward spiral. And why? Because the second party to view it fell in love with my "Designer Kitchen", as our real estate agent labeled it.
I considered that my official graduation from Dad's Academy of Repair and Renovation.
Now here I sit, in my final weeks of the post-divorce apartment I've occupied for the last 3 years... waiting on a rainy morning to hear from my real estate attorney's paralegal. Today is my closing on a house I'm buying from HUD (the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development**).
And thank you, HUD, for being the inspiration for my blog's title.
To give proper credit, it should really be called "House Difficult II", as House Difficult was the name given to the reno project of my aunt & uncle's house, as Dad helped, many years ago (a little family joke there). But I don't think Uncle purchased his project from HUD... the "Difficult" was referring to the renovations itself.
I'm not going to get into the ins & outs of dealing with HUD here... that would have been better suited for a separate blog I could have started back in May when I first bid on this house... and I've vented out the gist of it to my poor friends & fam via Facebook. Suffice it to say, the extra efforts had better be worth it! This blog is going to be about the post-purchase adventure... I'm hoping to hell it'll all get better from here.....
More later....
~T
** more like Dept. of Headaches and Unnecessary Drama!!
