Our House

By not having any house plan finalized, and Secrest selling after 90 days on the market we were pushed into probably the best thing that could have happened. We moved into our Boulder House AS IS in October. All our art, but very little of our furniture fit inside. Yet I think we did a pretty good job of making it comfortable and homey. We stuck the rest of our furniture in storage and settled into what we had. We woke everyday to the Flatirons turning pink with the sunrise and watched the birds play in the creek. Tim fished a lot and the dogs loved playing in the water (which didn’t help his fishing!). In the mornings we’d walk our loop trail along the creek and spot the bear, bunny, coyote, and Owl scat from the night before – a favorite time for the dogs.

We fell in love with the little house, and ideas to update and give it a face lift started to unfold. The square footage of the house (2,800) felt comfortable, the layout, while needing some adjustments, didn’t really need much. As Tim’s Dad Daryl says, “How much living can you do?” We started working on new plans that kept the footprint of the house as is, and would repair or replace the entire kitchen infrastructure, framing and roof, interior finishes, doors, windows and siding. Also, bury all the electrical and cable lines, add a new gas meter and line, and add a cistern and new pumps to the well. Did I miss anything? Ahh, yes, decks, patio and landscape will be added too! 

It was tough as the November cold came in. The windows in the basement that were actually not windows but pieces of plexiglass screwed on from the outside of the house let all that cold air right in. The back door and front door let wind blow right in even with insulation tape added. No insulation in the basement and next to none in the ceiling allowed all our heat to escape. So, living in the house AS IS  had it’s challenges. By December, we were getting tired of being cold, especially at night!

By mid-December we had a rough plan sent off to the Architect. As there was no way we could stay in the house during the remodel (6-8 months), we started looking for a rental and found one quickly. At Bailey’s request we rented in Lakewood to be close to her and make life easier. 3 months after moving into Boulder, we moved again to Lakewood. We took most everything from the Boulder House and stored it in the garage there except for clothes and kitchen items. Then we had everything from our storage unit delivered to Lakewood. It was like musical chairs with furniture and very of unsettling. 

By January 15th we were completely moved out of Boulder, into Lakewood, and had the architectural plans in hand ready to begin the Boulder transformation!

While we were in the middle of all our planning we stopped for a moment mid-summer to host the McDonald Family BBQ. Tim’s sister Kathy was in town so we used that as our opportunity to get everyone together! The kids played in the creek, we all sat on the “deck” and everyone got in some good fishing time. Everyone knows those McDonald boys love to fish, but Billy caught his fair share too!

Yep that’s from our creek!

At this point we were still on the path of adding a large new section to the house. We had our wonderful architect Jack White drawing up plans and were working on some bids. Tim and I hadn’t fully embraced the downsize idea. Sure in theory it sounded good, but every time we started drawing the house kept getting bigger. So while our Secrest Ct. house at 7200 square feet was a behemoth, the new one was only pared down to 4900. Technically not a downsized retirement home at all!

As the numbers to redo the old section of house came in, and the numbers for the whole new section came in, we realized we were totally out of our budget! It wasn’t pretty! We really had to step back and reconsider our options. Do we scrape and build small but totally new? Do we just adjust the old house? We were pretty disappointed after we put together such a cool plan. And, we had wasted money and time on a plan we weren’t going to build! I think that’s when fate intervened to help drive us towards the right decision! Our house on Secrest went under contract!

What exactly are we doing buying this house? That is a question that ran through both our minds repeatedly as we went through the closing process in March 2012… did I say repeatedly? I meant constantly. The more we looked at the house, the more we inspected it, the more things we found that had to updated, changed or straight out gotten rid of. And, what exactly was our plan? Were we going to live in it, rent it, flip it? Those questions also reverberated inside our heads, until….

Our first “overnight” at what we were then calling our “cabin” in Boulder changed our minds. We ate dinner listening to the creek. We sat and watched the sunset over the Flatirons until the stars appeared. In the morning the sunrise lit up the mountains in a pink glow, and we were hooked forever. Even the huge wind storm during the night, sleeping on an air bed with Wrigley and Rudder, and Rudder hurling up some dead animal he’d eaten at 2am, couldn’t dampen our excitement now!

First Dinner on the Deck