Tag Archives: debt free

Crooked Little House

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Sixteen Months ago I sold my 200 year-old #historic home in Harrison County.  I loved that house.  Over the five years we owned it we managed to save a relic and create an amazing home.  It was time to move on, so we put it up for sale, then after two years and many many price reductions, we sold it.

My husband and I are unsure what to buy for our next home and frankly, we don’t have the means to buy anything just yet anyway.  Enter the Crooked little house.

With our measly #profit (yes, we made a little tiny profit on our #house but only because we originally got a great deal on it and put lots of money into it) we bought a little house in northern Scott County.

Let me begin with the ‘little’ part.  We are a family of four who moved from a 2500 square foot house.  I swore I would NEVER own such a big house again.  We only used about half of the house anyway and it was a non-stop cleaning nightmare.  The new house is less than 900 square feet.  As I write, the back of my kitchen table chair is bumped-up against the stove.  When I open my squat little fridge, I smack the other kitchen chair.

The house is old, but not historic.  It is nestled on a rectangular little lot that is situated so the front door opens just five feet from the road and the back of the house slopes sharply to a cute little dry stream bed.

Over the years, and there have been many of them, the house has ‘settled’.  At least that is what they say when a house has floors that are not level.  I am personally not convinced that this house is ‘settled’, I think ‘actively shifting’ is a better term for it.

When you enter the house you have 2 front rooms, the living room which slopes to your right and the master (only real) bedroom which slopes to your left.  Walk through the living room and you will enter the eat-in (because there is nowhere else eat) kitchen…which slopes toward the backyard (if you can call it a yard).   The kids’ room (slopes to the right and back), and bath (slopes to the left and back) are off the kitchen.  And there you have it, my new home in a nutshell.  I feel like a nut in a shell.

The first night we stayed in our crooked little house, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and hit two different walls on the way.  I was like a drunken solder on a ship at sea.

Do you have blinds?  Yes? Well you probably take for granted the fact that they hang flush with the window.  In my house there is a little screw at the bottom of the window, a string connects the blind to the screw to keep it back.  Yes I said back.

Do you ever find your freezer door open?  I do all the time.  I think if they opened the other way maybe…  The toilet seat won’t stay up, unless of course you are actively using the toilet, then it is resting quietly on your back.  I tried to put a magazine on top of the toilet tank once, it slid off onto the perpetually ‘down’ lid (thank god for unanswered prayers).  Maybe I shouldn’t have tossed the carpet tank cover that was covering it when we bought the place.

Tonight, when I baked fish in the oven, the olive oil pooled to the right deep-frying half the fish and scorching the other half.  This makes no sense.  When you look at the stove the kitchen slopes left, how does the oil pool to the right?  Is my stove crooked too?

But there is one good thing about this house.  Well, there are a few good things but my favorite thing is the covered porch…it’s level.  The house fell away from it decades ago but it held tight onto its concrete slab.  You have to pull against gravity to shut the storm door and push against gravity to open the screen door but once you escaped the confines of the crooked house, the porch is a welcoming respite from the angles.  On it I can sit and smile because despite this house being crooked, I own it free and clear so it’s not such a bad little house after all.

And with a couple thousand dollars, look what my hubby did:

Stay tuned next week for my #Tough #Mudder adventure.  I’m just waiting on pictures.