Wife and myself have been in our little fixer-upper since 2000. We've done great - it was the cheapest crappiest house in the best neighborhood and we've done 99.9% of the work ourselves. Even in the soft market it's still worth double what we paid.
But it had a little problem. As is it's little. The garage is wee and shop wee-er still. There's no way to fix that short of bulldozing and starting over - and the zip code in which we reside makes that unbelievably expensive. The frustration of only being able to work on stuff when it's dry daylight and I'm not at work is huge. In the shop I don't have room to park a shop vac. It's really, really tight.
Last weekend wife says "let's go take a look at this house" - it's a couple miles away in what's arguably the most chi-chi zip code in the area. I didn't have a lot of hope.
From the street it's a 1950 split level. Inside though, it just goes on and on and on. Previous owners added a huge master bedroom/bath/dressing room/laundry extension off the back.
Underneath is a 24x26 block wall, grey painted concrete floor room that couldn't be any more like the machine shop of my dreams.
Out back is a detached garage about 26' x 32'.
I'll need to do a whole house detail, re-trim and paint and gut and re-do a kitchen and 3 bathrooms.
You never get what you don't try though. On the basis the house has been empty for a year and on the market 3 months+, we sort of lowballed, they countered, we countered about halfway, they accepted this morning.
As I write the M3 is on stands in the driveway with the suspension and oil pan off awaiting oil pump upgrade, pan baffle, rod bearings and bolts, motor mounts and subframe bracing. All done outdoors. No more!
