we finally found it!

After several years of looking, we've finally found the house that we think we can all live with! we eventually expanded our search north to bradford county, after i looked on the lowe's website to see where the stores were located. we had decided that dave would plan on transfering to another store, as he still wants to work for lowe's, since they are a good employer. there is a store in sayre, pa, which is just about as north as you can get without going into new york. just a few weeks after we made a trip to bradford county to meet our real estate agent, and check out the area, we found a huge, old colonial farmhouse that was for sale just outside of the little town of monroeton. we made an appointment to go through the house, and while we originally liked it (i loved it!) it was too expensive.

fast forward several months, and wade through many details like the sale of our home in new berlin, the impending foreclosure of the house in monroeton, B's birth in october, a drastic price plunge, sewer issues, and great difficulty in getting a signed deed- and as of december 11, we were the proud owners of the oldest framed house in bradford county, along with 6.91 acres along towanda creek.

now the fun really begins! there is an almost unfathomable amount of work to be done on the house, but we have been able to look past all that, to see the diamond in the rough that it is. (interestingly, a friend of ours looked at our house, and was heard to remark that she had expected the potential to be a bit easier to see- not buried so deeply!) we can see in our minds eye how nice it will look in a few years- and i can imagine a house full of children and grandchildren some day, as it is certainly large enough to accomodate everyone at 3000+ square feet!

the house was very well built in 1807, but unfortunately for the last 50+ years, very little upkeep and maintainance has been done on it, and almost no modernizing. the "short list" of projects is very daunting- ripping out the plaster and lath and hanging new drywall throughout the whole house, new wiring, new bathrooms, a whole new heating system, refinishing floors, new roof, windows and siding, new kitchen and new doors. we are thankful that dave works at lowe's, as this makes the project all the more feasable. we are able to use his 10% employee discount, and also take advantage of sales and special order returns. we got a lowe's credit card, and we went shopping for a bunch of stuff for the house. (that was really fun!) we got tiles for the bathrooms, all the fixtures, sinks toilets and tubs- even a jacuzzi! we also bought all the new windows, and boatloads of drywall. additionally, we bought ladders, brooms, work lights and a shop vac. we also added new doors, as well as wire, outlets and switches to do the electrical work. we will do all the work ourselves, with the help of the teenage sons- D, N and G. i will work on the house as i'm able, with M's contribution being helping with the little girls, A and B. so for the last several months, we've been traveling to moroeton several days a week, and are making progress on the to-do list. dave spends every day off working on the house, and the boys often go along to help out. there is still much work to be done, but we're confident that we can accomplish this task- and still be on speaking terms when we're done!