Tomorrow was supposed to be our close date. It's not. We have our fingers crossed and prayers going up that it will happen before the end of the week. The weather here is supposed to rocket into the 50's & 60's and then tank next week, bringing a huge snow storm with it. If you are not familiar with winter in Missouri, it's generally pretty cold and frozen, so having warm weather to move in would be a huge blessing.
I had to run down to the little town in which the farm is located to put down a deposit on the water. This was the last of the utilities that I needed to take care of and it had to be done in person. Imagine my surprise when I was directed to go to the local accountants/tax office to drop off my check. You also pay dues for the fire department there as well. I thought it was kind of efficient, having 3 businesses all in one place, one employee, three piles to work from. Since we were already down there, I decided to run out to the farm and see how badly things looked with all the rain and the traffic from the auction they had a couple weeks ago. The current owners have moved out and the house is empty. I was a little bit sad about tomorrow not being our possession date, however the biting wind quickly helped me get right over that thought.
We were able to get into the stables to see what exactly we will be dealing with. As a side note, we ended up buying the farm As-Is, and got the property 34K cheaper than their asking price. While they were over priced to start with, the property in it's current state ended up having no problems with appraisal. The way that I look at it, 34K can make up a lot of what is lacking, so I am not going to complain much.
Let me state here something that I just came to the conclusion about. I set my expectations too high. It's okay, better to wrap my brain around it right now and quickly get over it than drag it out and have an unthankful spirit.
Let's take a little tour of the stables, shall we?
This room is a toss between an office and an efficiently apartment. I imagine that if you had to be near your animals when they were birthing or if you needed space to keep records and grab a cup of coffee while spending time in the barn, this would be epic.
That door there is to a bathroom that appears to be winterized at the moment. It has a hotel style heating and cooling system for this room. I am doubting that this is much insulation for this area.
The door to the right is the one that you enter into this room. There are two windows. One that looks outside and one that looks into the stables.
The window in this view looks towards the house and the door to the right is the access to the stables.
Nice little kitchenette here. It does have running water. The precious owners had a little fridge to the right of this. I can envision a coffee pot and a microwave out here.
While I didn't notice before how badly the floor was, I did today. I think after a good scrub and a couple carpet rugs, it will be fine since this really isn't a living space.
Both the toilet and the sink in the bathroom have some kind of antifreeze in the system and there is a heater attached to these pipes.
The window that looks into the stables. I would totally steal this room as a craft/sewing room but I am afraid that mice would ruin my belongings.
In previous posts I have shared a full listing picture of the barn. This was the first time we were actually able to see it cleared out. There is still hay in the stalls but the center part and the workshop on the right have been cleared out.
There is a little work area and then a shop area, after that there is a stall that is for washing and foaling it appears. After that there are steps to the loft and an area to store hay.
This is the upper loft area. The youngest princess who turns 15 today has claimed this as her hang out spot. She has plans to build a railing, add some furniture, a table, strings of lights and a box of board games. Who knows, maybe she will move all her art supplies out here too and paint here. Looks like she has a good deal of cleaning up to do. I am sure this spring she will be happy to get moving on the project.
left behind is an alpaca swimming pool. Maybe the baby lumberjack will be able to use it on the back patio and share with our lab Sadie. I do plan to store my "manger people" and manger at the far end of this area.
Normally I would end my entry for the day with how many days until we move and indicate that I am packing, taping and praying. Today I can do no such thing since we have no idea how many days are left, almost everything has been packed, and we are now praying that the moving company can fit us in on such short notice.
