News on the Home Front

Third time's the charm, right?  Well this will be the third homestead that we tried to purchase.  The first one didn't go far .. the owner didn't even counter.  The second one .. part of the story is here and here.  Also, we recently learned that the owner's son was arrested at that property producing meth.  Yeah, God was telling us a definite NO on that one.

A few weeks ago, I started to pray a novena to St. John Bosco.  This is the novena that I prayed from Jan. 22 to his feast day, Jan. 31.  At the request, I asked for St. John Bosco's intercession for a homestead.  During his life, he helped many troubled boys.  He set up oratories to teach them different skills along with the ways of God.  Since St. John Bosco knew the importance of work and learning the faith, I prayed for a homestead in which we would be able to do that for our children.

On Jan. 29th, my husband sent my an email with a craigslist listing of a homestead just over the county line.  Feb. 2nd we looked at the property.  The house was small and the property was 10 miles from our good friends instead of 5-6 miles like we were hoping for.  We prayed about it all week.  Saturday, we looked at it again bringing our good friends along.

Well, tonight, we have a signed contract.  Tomorrow, we will start the appraisal process.

Some stats:

1934 2 story brick farmhouse
6 acres
2 pastures fenced in with a gate separating them so that you could rotate pastures.
Huge three level barn built in 1900
Another outbuilding
One stall detached garage
1456 sq ft house
Full basement - dry ... they added foundation tiling around the perimeter.
3 bedrooms and 2 baths on the second floor
1 bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room on the main floor
0.25 mile long driveway
0.5 miles of gravel to the black top road

Some pictures:

Main floor bedroom - will use as piano room / school room

Living Room

Living Room

Dining Room  (fireplace is fake .. owners are taking it with them)

Kitchen

Kitchen (pantry to the right of the stairs)

Boys' Room

Girls' Room

Our room (a king size bed will fit)

We went into this process knowing that we'll be adding on as soon as our current home is sold.  The house is able to be added on to on the north, west, and east sides.

If everything works out, we would take possession on March 28th.