Bye Bye Creepy Basement!

So this house, while clearly full of potential and an amazing life's calling, has also scared the bejesus out of a few folks. I'm not going to name names here, but I'll just say that I've heard references to holding a sage ceremony more than once. 

Honestly though, when we first looked at the house, I never felt weirded out. I'm not going to claim to have a strong 6th sense, but I'm a pretty aware gal. The first several times we went through the house, it was boarded up. There was no electricity. It was late summer/early fall, and as Halloween came closer I thought how we could have had an award winning haunted house without doing a damn thing except open the door. And yet I really didn't get creeped out. Not until we opened up the house, and were able to experience the basement in full daylight.

It wasn't the whole basement that gave me goosebumps. It was just one room. I actually scoured my photos to find something that showed this room, but couldn't find one. That right there tells you how much I couldn't stand it. This room felt to me as though a slightly off kilter adult son had lived in it, pinning articles to the wood paneled walls and obsessing about who knows what. The energy was lonely and scary at the same time- a combo I'm not really interested in knowing more about. 

John stands in the non-room

But other than that room, the basement, even with its nasty weird "bathroom," didn't feel that bad to me. So when John set-up his ETesque shop down there to remove a small amount of asbestos and ready the space for the crew to remove the large stuff, it was with great joy that all the interior walls came down and the space opened up. Wood paneling: gone! Gross carpet: gone! Sears Super 75 : gone, along with lots of scrap metal from pipes and what not that we simply couldn't use. A guy stepped out of Mad Max and answered my ad on Craigslist. He paid us and took it all away for recycling.  Not that I'd want to build a summer cottage there or anything, but the space is no longer so

A room with a view

creepy that I can't be in it.

When the house is remodeled, we won't be using the original basement as our active space. We'll be adding a new basement underneath some of the new construction for our TV area. The original basement, which probably needs a name all of its own, will be a utility space only. 

This whole process has really been about respecting the past of this house as much as it's been about creating a future space for our family. Sad times clearly came with the good, and while I don't mean to dismiss the sad, I feel we need to elevate the good times this house has seen. And maybe hold a sage ceremony.  Or two.

One Year Later . . .

I've had a hard time setting time aside time to write. Yesterday I was contemplating that, and realized that I needed to side step my chronological approach and make an entry about what's happening now. So . . .

One year ago we closed on the purchase of Lazy Fox. One year ago we signed on to rent the TWC, thinking we'd be here 6, maybe 9, months. One year ago we were a month in to this sometimes-insane journey of regrowing our roots in Fort Collins. One year ago we thought we'd be tucked safely into our new farm house in a year's time. It's safe to say that a year ago, we had no idea WTF.

I'd be lying if I said the past 12 months weren't very hard. Packing the Mizias into less than 800 square feet, just by itself, without the added financial stress of designing and building a home, is enough chaos to cause a mild shift in the cosmic energy forces (and you thought that was solar flares!). I thought about including a picture that somehow captured said chaos, but decided that this little video is a pretty good glimpse at it.

 

But I'd also be lying if I didn't say that the light at the end of this long tunnel is growing brighter. And every single time, I mean every time, we set foot on to Lazy Fox, it all makes perfect sense. 

After a year of starts and stops with design, we are closing in on permit drawings. Of course, we've been saying we're "three weeks away from having permit drawings" for probably 8 weeks now, but hey, it's some kind of movement, right? Every start and stop has been for some good reason, obvious or not, and the result will soon be a design that's perfect for us. I've started meeting an awesome kitchen designer to make sure that we think through every detail of this hugely gigantic mega important space in our house. It's all coming together, on paper at least, and that is one good thing.

Another good thing: our time at the TWC has come to an end. Wait. What? "How can you be moving out if Lazy Fox still only exists in a pre-permit state on paper?" you ask. Well, we've decided to buy another house. Wait. What? "I'm so confused," you say. "Are you abandoning the project? It sounds like it's going well! why? WHY?" Woah. Chill out! It's still full steam ahead with Project Lazy Fox. We need something to drive us crazy for the next year. But we realized that after exploring the rental market, we wouldn't be able to move to another place with more room or a yard without paying at least what we are paying now. If, however, we buy a house, our mortgage payment will be less than rent, and we'll have an investment in town. Not bad, right? So by next month sometime, we will be the proud owners of a sweet 1950's ranch close to campus and old town. And you don't even know the best part: we get to have a kitchen table again! Words cannot do justice here. Kind of like a happy version of my reaction to this beauty:

So that's the scoop. Forward-moving-treading-water with our design, purchasing a second home, and an eye on that brightening light. (My apologies for any nightmares that picture may cause. I probably should have had a disclosure at the beginning about not reading this in front of your children or if you have a weak heart. What can I say? It's a learning year.)

Fun with Asbestos Abatement

No really, it's fun! There is such joy in paying $5,000 . . . no wait! Make that $10,000, in asbestos removal. For an added bonus, you should try making sure that when your new home is first inspected for the presence of asbestos, all your electricity is off and the windows are boarded up. It really adds a hide-and-go-seek air to the whole party. And the element of surprise is, well, something you'll be remembering for years to come.

It really does look ET

Those that know me, know that I'm always finding a silver lining. Even though this carcinogenic storm cloud blew our money out the door, it did give us immediate motivation to prepare the space for the abatement crew. This meant we had our first experience removing a few things from the house. Like the kitchen. And this kitchen was nasty.

Night time work

"You guys are nuts"

After the long time resident Mary Pierce had died, the house was vacant for a few years. During that time, it appears it was broken into and used as a drug den. The kitchen was so gross: carpet tile that was encrusted with who knows what, a sink that was stained with who knows what, rotted wood cabinets from a leak who knows when, and the general feeling that mold and maybe more asbestos awaited us beneath those carpet tiles. So we took extra precaution, and we rocked that look. Hard. Core.

Removing the kitchen was, of course, very therapeutic. It felt good to FINALLY get things moving, even if it was only to prep for work that others would do. John and I have been committed to deconstructing the house, keeping materials for reuse as we can, and generally approaching things with an air of respect. I've actually felt myself honoring the history of this house, this structure that was home to families for almost 100 years, as I've helped to take it down. 

The kitchen removal opened my eyes to the history of this house and all the treasures that can still be found. Apparently the 1960's were a good time for this house, resulting in a kitchen remodel with what must have been the rage: the Lady Kenmore series. Along with the calendar, penny, and green stamps that we found under and behind cabinets, the Lady Kenmore series appliances gave us a good glimpse into the past of Lazy Fox. These things were gems, and would have warranted recondition had they not been in such a state of decay. I salvaged two pieces that I felt where the most iconic, and have hopes of turning them both into light fixtures at some point.

The top rack of the Lady Kenmore dishwasher

Even a garbage disposal has style!

All of this was done in November of 2012. We're closing in on a year since this first moment of deconstruction . . . and the house still stands very much the same way it did then. BUT, we are moving along at a good clip now and I have faith we'll be breaking ground soon.

Free Range Kids

One of the big reasons we always wanted acreage was so the kiddos could run. I mean literally run. And jump, and skip, and swing, and dig, and sing out loud, and have quiet moments, without me having to watch them from the front porch keeping weirdos at bay with my "mama's watching" presence. My kids love to be outside in all kinds of weather, and always have.

A few years back

When we made the decision to move to Fort Collins last September, we also made the decision to home school Miles (Ella was too young, just turning 4). While this presented its own set of peaks and valleys, it really emphasized for me just how much we all learn when we get outside. We learn by seeing and doing. We learn by engaging in the poetry, the math lessons, the music, the engineering, the ecology that is all around us everyday. We also learn by calming our bodies and minds in the out of doors before setting foot into the housed learning environment. And I deeply believe we all learn by doing nothing in particular and giving ourselves downtime to process, both outside and inside our homes. 

A different perspective

Jumping rope and counting

We love spending long days at Lazy Fox with the kids. Because it was October when we bought the property, the days were warm and getting shorter. Soon enough it was cold, and even though the property has a monstrous machine shop (Ye Olde Machine Shoppe, as I like to call it) that seems so inviting and warm, the only utility is electric. With no heat, 2400 square feet of concrete and exposed rafters gets cold. We built the kids a cardboard fort, inside of which we put a space heater, an area rug, a table and chairs, some play kitchen equipment, and a "movie theater" for when it was too cold to do much else. This sufficed, but eventually the call of the farm quieted over the winter months.

Except when it snowed. There is a great sledding hill at the school across the street, and two acres covered in snow has a certain appeal to kids of all ages. And dogs. 

 

  

 











Maiden Spring and the warmer months brought us all back out to the Lazy Fox on a regular basis. No more Daddy spending hours at night there alone, working in the unheated spaces. Now we could all come, which also meant that together John and I could tackle the deconstruction of the house. (Watch for a few posts about that, I think.) And it meant that kids could run. Really run. Yippee! So our summer months have been spent with a mix of time at The Teeny Weeny Condo and running wild and free at Lazy Fox. Both Miles and Ella can truly lose themselves there for hours, whether alone, visiting with friends, or playing together.

Yes, we have a zip line

And really that's true for all of us. Which is just one reason we love it.

Letting the Light In

As it's been mentioned before, when we purchased Lazy Fox the house was boarded up. When the long time occupant Mary Pierce died (her husband passing years before she did), and after her family had cleaned out the hoarding craziness she left behind, the house experienced a bit of vandalism. I've not yet gotten the total story, but it sounds like a mix of bored teenagers and druggies found their way to the vacant home and had their ways with it. In 2007 when it was finally sold by the Pierce family, the new owner boarded up the windows after finding a rock thrown through one of the leaded glass beauties. With all of this turmoil swirling around, we felt our first order of business needed to be removing the boards and letting the house breathe. We needed to let the light in.

Front porch after letting the light in

Front porch before

So, we put out the call for a Letting the Light In party. A group of close friends came to Lazy fox to help us take off the boards. It was the first time our friends had seen our new farm-in-to-be, and the first time we were able to really see the inside of the house. Beers were consumed, laughter was had, and in about 30 minutes the boards were off. 

Bob removing boards

Clay gettin' her done

 












Tours were given, observations were made . . . the air was filled with a mixture of hope, nostalgia, opportunity, and lots of questions. Questions like "who lived here before," "what's the history of this place," and "are you going to do a cleansing ceremony" were heard more than once. Surprisingly "are you in over your head" was never uttered, although it may have indeed been thought, and has been asked since. It was a wonderful day, the first of many that infused the land with love and light.

The house breathes.

In the Beginning . . .

I've been thinking a lot about how we got here to Fort Collins, where we're going broke, waffling  between the joy of possibility and the stress of our day to day reality. How we got here, to owning a 2 acre lot with a charming, rundown brick bungalow and oodles of potential, while renting a 780 square foot condo with limited outside space consisting of the parking lot and a charming, rundown alley. I guess it's easiest to start at the beginning.

When we moved away from Fort Collins almost 10 years ago, I had the notion we'd be back. But after 9 years in Golden we started to really feel settled. We found the perfect school for the kids, John's job at United Launch Alliance was strong, and I had a good balance going between volunteer/consultant/stay at home mom. Our circle of friends in the area felt strong, and I didn't pine for the community we had left behind (as much). The major remodel we had done to our 1944 bungalow was serving us well, and the landscaping we had done over the years was really in full swing. And of course, that's when John got the job offer at CSU.

Skipping over the emotional turmoil we went through on deciding that the job was right for John, the determination was made last summer to accept it. We sold our home ourselves in a mere 7 days, which was great and really put the pressure on to find our new home in Fort Collins. Our criteria was simple: 4 beds, 3 baths, garage, a cook's kitchen, and NO REMODELING! In 2008 we gutted our home in Golden and added a second story. It's true our marriage survived, and we really didn't care to experience that stress again. So after looking at several houses that just didn't fit the bill, it's no surprised that I laughed in John's face when he showed me a listing that entailed a boarded up brick bungalow. As I recall, my exact reaction was "Are you fucking kidding me? NO! Did you see there's a boarded up house on this lot? NO!"

The house we left in Golden

John made his case to just look at it. It has so many of the things we want, he said. It's 2 acres actually in old town, no crazy bike route required. It has a brand new 2400 sq foot machine shed and beautiful, flat, south facing land we can cultivate. And the house has charm beneath those boards probably. Let's just go look. So we did. 

The house at Lazy Fox

The moment we stepped on to the lot, we both knew we had to do it. We had to take this crazy step. The house did have charm beneath the boards, and even though there was no electricity, I didn't feel creeped out at all when we walked it in pitch black with our flashlights. It was apparent the home (and it's occupants we have since found out) had been through years of neglect and abuse, but that didn't give me the chills or turn me off. I actually felt the joy on the land; there had been happy times here and I felt the rebirth of those times calling us.

That day we made an offer. At sunset we walked to the nearby playground and watched the sky changing over the land. A big ol' fox came around the corner of the house and lazed about. Unphased by the presence of us or our dogs as we walked back toward the house, the fox was totally at home. Over the next few weeks we learned the fox had lived there for some time, and then we learned it had died. We mulled over what to call this new home, and then the name came: Lazy Fox.

We rented a condo a mile away that is far too small for our familial energy, but it's only temporary we figured. And as we should have known, this is all taking much longer than we had hoped and costing us more money than we have. So how did we get here when could have bought a perfectly fine house with some of what we wanted? We got ourselves into this crazy little paradox, I believe, because this is what we do. A dear friend once said "That's you guys: chaos." I've resented the comment over the years, and now I am seeing that he was simply stating the pure truth. From feeling the energy that literally bounces off the walls in The Teeny Weeny Condo we rent to the way we navigate decision making, I am face to face with our chaos this year. A new friend recently told me that we just need to get outside more. And she's right. Our chaos dissipates in the wide open space of outside, and so we return again to the vitality calling us at Lazy Fox.