Hi all.
For the last 5 years I had to downgrade from a 2 car detached garage to an 8 x 10 back yard shed.
No fun, I tried to make the best of it early on, but frustration at doing simple tasks got the better of me.
Every time I needed power I had to run an extension cord from the house, and roll it up after I was done, not fun on a cold and dark winter night. The only plus was it heated up very quickly
So in January this year we found out, to our surprise, we were eligible to buy a house, not knowing this we had no savings put away for closing cost. So I looked into a USDA loan (no closing costs). I qualified but the catch was to move south out of Virginia to North Carolina. SWMBO was not happy, but she started looking online and start to warm up to the idea when she saw what was available for our price compared to Virginia.
So we made a list of our top 10 in order of preference and contacted a realtor to look at a few. The day before we were to view, SWMBO, found another to add to the list as it had a detached single car garage for my workshop. She forwarded this to the realtor. The next day we drove to meet the realtor turning onto the street he told us to meet him on we met him about 10 houses from the turn. To say I was in love at first site is an understatement (picture #1)
2 car garage, awesome no more dragging extension cords and cramped quarters, but there was more. After looking at the inside, which SWMBO loved the kitchen; I was led to see a piece of heaven as this greeted me as I walked out the back door.
(picture #2)
If I thought it couldn’t get any better then I saw this
(Picture #3)
Fully wired for 240V and 115V, also notice just on the left if the picture the pull down steps to a fully boarded attic.
More of the workshop (picture #4 and #5)
Now all this above didn’t come without a roller coaster ride to finally purchase. Our original closing date was October 19th, which would have worked out great for us. Our rental lease was up at the end of October; plan was to move in after closing giving us a week to get the rental ready to hand back. No, closing was moved to 11th Nov (Veterans Day), we moved everything into storage and moved into an extended stay hotel. Closing moved again to 28th Nov. After some badgering from my realtor and me to the loan company (who kept changing the date), we got the closing date to Nov 23rd. there was more stress towards final closing, money amounts changing, courts closing ½ day before Thanksgiving and Utilities closing ½ day, but we got the keys and got moved in. Now I have the rest of my life to unpack and make it ours.
Oh and one more note, the house we were supposed to meet the realtor at was the last minute one SWMBO found with a single car garage in the back. Well when the realtor saw it he thought my wife had made a mistake her house was number 1, the house we bought is number 8 on the same street, we had driven past the original one.
A few more pics of settling in (picture #6 and #7)