Lagoon Landing – Our Newest Adventure

We bought a house… again.

I know, I know… didn’t we just buy a house a couple of years ago? Yes, we did. And although we love our current house, especially its location on the intracoastal, we have decided that it is ridiculously large for our rapidly shrinking family. 5300 square feet, six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a library/office – it’s just beyond our current needs. (Check out our current house when we first bought it, here.)

Our oldest daughter moved out almost immediately after we bought this house when she graduated college. And our son is graduating from high school this year and will be taking up residence near his college a few hours away. This leaves us with just the girls full time – and a house we that is much too big for just four of us.

Downsizing begins

Although we didn’t plan on downsizing just yet, when the house next door became available, we decided that we would take the leap sooner than later. The house is approximately 3000 square feet – still a good size – with four bedrooms and two and a half baths. And every single bit of it is original to 1960 when it was built. I know what your thinking… sure, it would be fabulous and fun to have a vintage house, right?! Uh huh… if it all wasn’t broken, worn out, stinky or downright UGLY.

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Since we purchased the house, we have found that it needed much more than what we first believed. For example, we need to re-pipe the entire house. The plumbing is original to the house, and the cast iron pipes have rusted through and collapsed in some areas. So, even if I wanted to save the cute little pink bathroom, we couldn’t.

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Not only are we breaking up the plumbing in the bathrooms, since it’s a concrete block house, that means we have to cut up the terrazzo floors throughout the house too for the new pipes, going into, and out of, the house. It’s a freaking travesty. Seriously, I cried. Both septic tanks are collapsing upon themselves – so they need to be replaced. The electrical panel had to be replaced before we could even settle on the house (yes, we had to pay for that too). There’s no insulation, The ductwork is the original duct work meant for heat, not AC.

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The windows and doors all need to be replaced – most don’t close or open, and they don’t lock correctly either! There is mold in the walls where there were previous leaks. The list just goes on and on… And I guess that’s a good thing since it means I’ll have lots to write about and report on as we go through this process. Right?!

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The good news is that once it’s all done, it will be a great place for our family to live, secure in the knowledge that it’s all new, and there won’t be hidden problems. In the meantime, I hope you’ll follow along as we update all of it. I’m feeling like this might just be our biggest project ever. Keep up with the progress on my instagram account. I’m keeping all the story updates in the highlight named “Lagoon Landing”.

Thanks for stopping by! Eliesa