It might be closer, it might be a long ways away (if ever.) But we’re still looking.
First of all, I have nothing but praise for our current house. It is a beautiful house in a great location. Derek walks to school. The neighbors are great, the crime rate is so small that it looks like a major crime wave when the neighbor’s gas can is stolen.
The house we currently live in is gorgeous. It was built during a time when taking aesthetics into consideration was considered mandatory. The proportions of every room are perfect. It is open and airy, yet retains every single one of its original interior (and exterior) doors and hardware. The only room that has been remodeled at any time is the kitchen, and that looks like it was updated in the 60′s. (Unfortunately, that meant the removal of the original cast iron sink and built-in draining board, which was replaced by a completely inadequate and shoddy model. Sigh.)
All of the windows are even original, which is a huge plus for me, as I hate vinyl replacement windows.
So why are we even looking at another house?
Well, that’s a good question.
There are several reasons, the main one being that it fits with our long term goal: to own a small farm. Why do we want the land? Well, we want to become more self-sufficient, we believe strongly in eating locally grown organic produce, and it would allow me to keep my horse much more economically. In fact, it would allow me to keep my horse for practically free if I could also board one or two other horses.
My horse has issues, every horse has issues. He would be very difficult to place in a new home because of these issues. His age is against him (he’s almost 20), his breed is against him (Arabians are NOT popular in Kentucky) and his gender (he’s a stallion, almost nobody wants a stallion on their farm.)
Despite what a well-known blogger claims, there is a point at which a stallion is “too old to geld.” At least, while it IS possible to have the surgery done at such an advanced age, it is NOT economically feasible. It would cost more than my horse is worth for him to be gelded, and that has been the case for as long as I’ve owned him.
Because he is such a well-mannered horse, having him as a stallion has never been a problem. I can ride him just fine around geldings, stallions and even mares in heat. I’ve taken him on trail rides and to shows, he knows how to behave properly and does so.
But I digress. Back to the farm. I have no problem waiting for a few years to buy a farm, but Kai might have an issue with that. He needs more economical accommodations, or he needs to find a new home.
So I emailed our real estate agent to see if any properties had come on the market that fit our specifications. There was only one in Scott County that had.
We went out to see it yesterday. The house is slightly smaller than our current house. There is only one bathroom. (That is a big negative for us.) There is no central air (another big negative.) There is a fireplace with a wood-burning stove attached. We can find no other way that the property is heated, there don’t appear to be any ducts in any of the rooms, but there is a propane tank outside.
There was a color brochure that gave pictures of and a description of the property, but no plat or map. There is a small garage, a very small old bunkhouse, a large pole barn with a cement floor, and that was, we thought, it. There was a large, old tobacco barn on the other side of the pole barn, but we didn’t inspect it because we thought it belonged to the adjacent parcel.
The pole barn was perfect for Brian’s workshop, but it had a cement floor, so wouldn’t be perfect for horses. And if he ever put a forge in there (one possibility) it wouldn’t be suitable for hay storage, either.
I thought I might have to use the garage for a stable, and was wondering how in the heck I could fit two stalls into it, and where I would put the hay.
On the way home, we laughed that we were even considering purchasing the property, it having only one bathroom and all.
But today, Brian looked up the parcel at his office, and sent me a map of it. Amazingly, the old barn is included in the parcel!
The land looked a lot more interesting to us. Brian wouldn’t have to share his pole barn, and the horses would have a nice barn instead of a dinky garage.
So we’re considering it.
I have to wonder why the selling agent didn’t even mention the old barn in the color brochure, or include a description of the dimensions of the parcel.
